Posted on 07/08/2008 4:51:12 AM PDT by FreeManDC
The domestic violence industry operates under the cloak of secrecy and anonymity, maintaining such policies are necessary to shield victims from their abusers. But every now and then a crack appears in the façade, revealing a sordid panorama of corruption, fraud, and abuse.
On February 28, 2007 the Naples, Fla. citizenry opened their morning newspapers to the jolting headline, "CEO Out at Women's Shelter: Investigation into Battery Complaint Prompts Departure." Over the next several months, details would spill out of a woman's rights activist who had evolved into a self-serving "tyrant," as one of her colleagues later described her.
The charges surrounded Kathy Herrmann Catino, a former victim of domestic violence and director of the Naples Shelter for Abused Women and Children.
Fifteen years ago Ms. Catino took over the helm of the debt-ridden shelter. She worked tirelessly and proved to be a skilled rainmaker, growing the shelter into a 60-bed facility with a $3.5 million budget, 52 staff members, and 276 volunteers.
But her crusade took on messianic overtones. Believing she was the savior of women, Catino set out to control the Board of Directors and even the personal lives of her employees.
"Kathy Herrmann-Catino ruled as the queen of the fortress she built for too long," revealed one woman, adding she "was obsessed with the need to control her subordinates and others in the community, and her obsession grew as the Shelter grew."
"As long as you did as you were told by her, it was all good. Don't do as you're told or have a mind of your own, and there were problems," explained another associate, adding that the shelter director "hates men."
One saw her as a Captain Queeg in a pantsuit: "You could see the self-satisfaction in her big round eyes and the little smile on her lips whenever she broke a spirit and made an employee cry."
"I've witnessed and been a victim of her abusive style," revealed a former board member. "She openly admits her son is an abuser ...Now we know where he learned it."
Catino went so far as to monitor employees' after-hours pursuits. Paul Vincent Zecchino revealed, "she would check on your home life and [find out] if you did not live your life outside of work as she thought you should."
And as if that wasn't enough, "Your condition of employment then required you to go to counseling and report that you went," the man wrote. "The counselor you went to was one that she would pick for you."
Is this beginning to sound a little like Soviet psychiatry?
Election Day, 2006 marked the beginning of the end. Believing that advancing social change was part of the shelter's mission, she sent an email to her staff instructing them to inform her whether they had voted.
But a few scofflaws did not respond. So the next day an infuriated Catino broadcast this warning: "OK — you are the folks who have not responded to my several requests for information regarding whether or not you voted on Tuesday. This is your CEO talking — the one who approves your pay check...Testing 1, 2, 3, anyone out there? Please respond."
The message was clear: If you don't come clean with the Commissar of Truth, your paycheck might be delayed, or worse.
Problem was, Florida law prohibits voter intimidation. For that misstep, Catino was arrested, booked, and released on bond.
The worst was yet to come.
Three months later Catino decided one of the shelter employees had crossed her one too many times. She wanted an underling to do the dirty work, but the employee refused to go along with the gig. When the tearful woman tried to walk out of the shelter, Catino grabbed her by the arm and yanked her around.
Legally this counts as assault. The security cameras captured the entire incident. Two weeks later, Kathy Catino was history.
The most insightful commentary came from a former associate who revealed, "In reality, Kathy's very sad life was never healed — it was only a mask she wore — a role she played. She was angry and unhealed, which is why she loved wallowing in her abuse."
A year later, whatever came of the former shelter director?
Pay a visit to the website of Equality Virginia, a group that advocates for the legalization of homosexual marriage in the state of Virginia. Cathy Catino is now the deputy director of the organization.
The website proudly states Catino "served as CEO of a FL shelter program for nearly fourteen years...While in Naples, Kathy started an outreach program for LBGT people who were victims of partner violence and routinely sheltered gay, lesbian, and transgender people in her program."
Long live the Revolution.
I had a custody case three years ago. The mom was falsely accusing my client of abusing her and the young child. She had her posse of abuse counselors and a CASA who believed everything she said to the very end. It took a year and tens of thousands in expert and lawyer fees but now dad has sole custody. To the very end that posse was glaring at me and gasping and groaning at the judge as he ruled in dad’s favor. The parenting time was supervised or I think that they would have helped her run with the kid. It was very scary. These women can be way way off the chart.
Yet another anecdote confirming the old adage that liberalism is a mental disorder.
Not uncommon, so I believe this assessment is likely right.
I'm glad she got the program running, but I'm also so glad she's out of there.
Typical CPS worker?
??????
I could have provided 65 beds for only $3 million and 30 staff members and 275 volunteers.
Now she’ll make TEN million. And while it makes her obnoxious, I don’t think a nasty email message and a yank on someone’s arm should make her a felon.
She sounds like several business engineers I’ve known. Ruthless, great organizational skills, can make money fall from the sky, but emotionally barren and rocky.
She has landed on her feet on another gravy train. She’ll yank another arm or run over someone’s toes again, but I bet there’ll be a rule about videos.
Sure, but can you bring on the "smack down" when needed? ;)
It works out to $160/bed/night.
More than the government per diem for military folks.
I'm curious about the original abuse situation she reported.
Today, I can get down on the floor and roll around with my children, I can tell them exactly how much I love them and how much God loves them. I can be angry (not rageful) when the situation calls for it. I can maintain healthy boundries with those around me, not being walked on but not abusing anyone else. My emotionless youth saddens me, but it does not control who I am today. I am not one of those people who spend all their time muttering under their breaths about the things that happened yesterday, or last week, or fifty years ago.
My children are beautiful, graceful things who don't carry the poison I went through, but know enough about it to be grateful that I got help and didn't let it flow downhill to them.
Prayers up for this sad woman who exemplifies the Liberal mindset of do-as-I-say. We are the product of our pasts, but we do not have to stay that way. It is really like the old joke...the light bulb really has to want to change.
Well, allowing for 1800 hours per year worked by each staff member, that provides for 10 to 11 staff members per shift. I think I would put some of the 60 people occupying beds to work, too.
The 276 volunteers? Not sure. I guess I’d need at least one to make my coffee.
“The domestic violence industry operates under the cloak of secrecy and anonymity, maintaining such policies are necessary to shield victims from their abusers. But every now and then a crack appears in the façade, revealing a sordid panorama of corruption, fraud, and abuse.”
I see nothing in the story that supports the breathless rhetoric in the lead.
Right out of Atlas Shrugged, the part about the woman who ran the factory where John Glat worked before he quit.
Some years ago, here in the Peoples Democratic Republic of Massachusetts, my wife fell down the front steps. Only five steps, but they are flagstone and she was banged-up. I immediately took her to the hospital. She could walk and talk with no difficulty. I sat in the passageway, reading a magazine, and waiting for her to come out of the examining area. I waited, and waited, and waited. A long time passed and I began to get worried.
Then, my wife came bustling out of a room, furious. "We're going!" she said and I followed her out the door to the parking lot. As we left several people stood silently, watching us leave. Once in the car, my wife said, "I don't believe these people! They took me into a room and for over 20 minutes, a nurse, an administrator, and a policeman tried to make me file battery charges against you so they could arrest you. I told them I had fallen, but they kept saying, 'It's ok, Ms. Pabianice. He can't hurt you any more. Don't be in denial. Let us arrest him now.'"
THAT's what's going on in the Liberal mind set. All men are abusive brutes who must be jailed and reformed.
I was furious and started to go back into the hospital to read them the riot act, but my wife convinced me to let it go.
Husbands routinely charged with wife/child abuse and given TRO's by divorce courts and losing the RKBA;
parents afraid that little normal shin bruises that children collect like rocks or stamps could be the basis for CPS coming in and taking your children;
Are we still free?
No wonder men are afraid of marriage, and couples afraid to have children.
It's a great tool for taking over a society - check out history - same old story. Tear apart the home, take over the country. Politics of envy, fear, and lies.
American women - why buy into the bologna? What a spoiled bunch. Why not just move to one of many countries in the world where you are treated like chattel, sterilized against your will, married without your consent, genitally mutiliated, burned on your husband's funeral pire, sold into white slavery... shall I continue?
Unfortunately, there are some who will use this situation to indict all abuse shelters in the same way the anti-homeschool crowd will use a single incident to indict all homeschoolers.
I'm pretty sure what I would have done in response if she had done either of these things to me would have been a felony.
I give her lots of credit up to a point. Then she went crazy. Power hungry woman are repulsive. Kinda like Hillary
Sounds like Hillary
However, it can be done. I know some who have done so, myself, and I have such admiration for their strength, perseverence, and courage.
There are still some places in America where you can handle it yourself, and the local cops will say, “Just call us when you’re done.”
I count myself very fortunate that my parents made it a priority to find such a place, discounting the distance from Broadway.
When we got to my parents I noticed the kid would grimace when he moved his arm. My BIL, a doctor, took one look at the kid and said “He's got a broken collarbone.”
I bundled the kid up and took him to the local hospital, Newton-Wellesly Hospital in the People Republic of Newton.
They checked the kid out then put us in separate rooms and every few minutes a doctor or nurse would come in and glare at me. I was puzzled, but figured they were doing whatever they had to to help my kid. They asked me time and time again what had happened I said I had no idea how the kid was hurt, and described that he had spent that morning and the day before with his mom.
Finally a doctor comes in and glares at me and asks to speak to my wife. I give her the number where she is and the doctor calls her with a nurse listening in. My wife says: “Yeah, he was with me, and I don't know how he got hurt.”
The doctor and nurse broke out with relieved grins and laughed. “It's OK,” the doctor says, and they let my kid in the room with me.
Obviously, at Newton-Wellesly Hospital “ mandatory abuse training” includes the idea that ONLY MEN can be abusers.
Of course, with that philosophy, they would be blind to women that might abuse their kids. But it's more important to promote the "all men are bad" meme than to actually protect children.
You'd think a smart doctor or nurse might challenge that idea, but I guess to do so would make them, themselves, suspect of possibly “protecting abusers,” and it's easier to go along then try to buck that crowd.
I never believe the Moms when they bring it up in the custody cases! If the kids were being abused, then the time to say something was when the abuse was happening! Unless that is why they left, then I would accept that reason.
My brother lives in a cuccoon of electronic gadgets that help prevent him from having any serious contact with humans that may abandon him, probably with clinical depression mixed in. I've tried to talk to him about this, but with no real luck. It's sad...I live a beautiful techicolor life, and he's stuck in shades of gray.
Kathy Herrmann Catino, the former CEO of the Shelter for Abused Women and Children of Collier County and one-time nominee for the Florida Women’s Hall of Fame, was arrested this week on a voter intimidation charge regarding e-mails she sent to her then-employees on Election Day in 2006.
Kathy Herrmann Catino
Good! I hope they hang the bitch.
She started off good then became a power freak. Like Obama
Sounds like one nasty dyke.
I'd laugh - okay I am laughing - but the lesson is clear: Dont piss off your wife or her next fall will land you in jail.
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