Impunity: Why Michigan Judge Carol N. Koenig Must Be Held Accountable Like Judge Bradley-Baskins For alleged Fraud 

Black Star News Editorial

Caption: Above Judge Carol N. Koenig. Source: Ingham County court website. 

The federal indictment of Detroit Judge Andrea Bradley-Baskins and her alleged accomplices has cracked a long-sealed door. For years, victims and journalists have warned that the probate and family courts—where the most vulnerable are supposed to be protected—have instead become places where power shields abuse. With the federal government now acting in Detroit, law enforcement must widen its lens. 

Caption: Judge Andrea Bradley-Baskins. Source: 36 District court website

The most urgent case demanding scrutiny is not only in Wayne County, but in Ingham County—where Judge Carol N. Koenig of the 30th Judicial Circuit Court continues to enjoy impunity.

The Bradley-Baskins indictment is instructive. A sitting judge, her father, and two others are accused of conspiring to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from wards of the state—people whose lives and property were entrusted to the court. The allegations are stark: systematic embezzlement, money laundering, false statements to federal agents, and the diversion of settlement funds meant for incapacitated individuals. Federal prosecutors did not blink at the power of a robe. 

They followed the facts.

That is precisely what must happen in Lansing.

Black Star News reported since 2024 on Judge Koenig’s conduct in a divorce case involving Dr. Paul Gregory St. Claire, 72, and his Haitian immigrant wife, Cassandra Fameux, 44. What emerges from the record is not a series of errors, but a pattern of actions that—if proven—mirror the same contempt for law and for vulnerable people alleged in Detroit.

At the center of the case is a Judgment of Separate Maintenance (JOSM) that transferred two marital homes and all assets, including millions in cash, to Dr. Paul Gregory St. Claire. Judge Koenig upheld that judgment by fabricating a Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) that did not exist.

Michigan law is unambiguous: where a party has been deemed incompetent, the court must appoint a Guardian Ad Litem. It did not happen. An Attorney Guardian Ad Litem (AGAL) was appointed solely to represent minor children—an entirely different role. The legal requirement was ignored.

Rather than correct the defect, Judge Koenig doubled down. In a written ruling, she asserted—falsely—that a Guardian Ad Litem participated in the mediation and execution of the judgment. That statement is not a matter of interpretation. It is demonstrably untrue. There was no Guardian Ad Litem. The record shows none was appointed. 

Yet the judge set the falsehood down in black and white to prop up a judgment that, under Michigan law, is void.

This is not an isolated moment. It traces back years earlier to proceedings before Judge Janelle Lawless, on Dec. 20, 2017 when Dr. St. Claire’s lawyer, Jessica Larson, placed her client on the stand and elicited testimony affirming that a mediation agreement had been executed by Ms. Fameux and her “guardian ad litem.” That guardian did not exist. Everyone in that courtroom charade knew it, including Judge Lawless. The phantom was conjured for the record, and the record was used—years later by Judge Koenig—to strip Ms. Fameux of her rights to the marital assets.

The human cost is devastating. Ms. Fameux’s divorce attorney Timothy Young alleged that she was drugged for years with powerful antipsychotic medications meant to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder—even though she didn’t have the diseases—administered by her husband and a colleague, Dr. Dominic Barberio, at U Michigan Health Sparrow to render her compliant and secure her signature on the judgment which was signed Feb. 20, 2018. 

Two psychiatrists later concluded Ms. Fameux did not suffer from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. One of them, Dr. Rita Aouad, diagnosed PTSD stemming from an abusive marriage. Ms. Fameux reported lasting physical harm from the alleged drugging: a brain tumor, a heart condition, diabetes, infertility.

After months of investigation, the Meridian Township Police on April 10, 2025 recommended criminal charges against Dr. St. Claire. The Ingham county prosecutor, Andrew Dewane, declined without explanation and without contacting the complainant. 

Earlier, Judge Koenig had rejected Attorney Young’s motion to set-aside the JOSM on account of the alleged drugging that incapacitated; this was long before they used the nuclear option, fabricating the GAL. 

Koenig rejected Ms. Fameux’s recusal request alleging racial bias and sealed the motion. Her wrongful upholding of the JOSM preserved a judgment that rewarded everything to Dr. St. Claire.

Black Star News has reached out several times, including today, to Judge Shauna Dunnings, Chief Probate and Circuit Court Judge in Ingham county, inquiring whether Judge Koenig continues to preside over cases—she has not responded. The inquiry was copied to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and to the US Attorney’s office for the Western District of Michigan. 

The parallels to Detroit are impossible to ignore. In Wayne County, federal prosecutors allege a conspiracy that used the machinery of the court to plunder wards of the state. In Ingham County, the allegation is that a judge used the authority of her office to validate a legal fiction—a nonexistent Guardian Ad Litem—to deliver a fortune to one party and leave the other with trauma and illness. 

In both, the alleged victims are people the courts are duty-bound to protect.

One difference stands out. In Detroit, the federal government acted. In Lansing, silence has prevailed. So far.

Judicial independence is not a license to fabricate facts, erase statutory protections, or participate—actively or passively—in alleged schemes that benefit the powerful at the expense of the vulnerable. 

When a judge allegedly creates a false guardian to save a void judgment, that is not discretion. It is alleged fraud. When lawyers place testimony on the record about a guardian they know does not exist, that is not advocacy. It is alleged deception. 

When another judge later adopts that fiction to deny relief, that is not error. It is alleged complicity.

The question now is simple and unavoidable. If Judge Andrea Bradley-Baskins and her alleged accomplices can be indicted for exploiting wards of the state, why do Judge Carol N. Koenig, Judge Janelle Lawless, attorney Jessica Larson, and Dr. Paul Gregory St. Claire remain beyond the reach of the same scrutiny for their alleged fraud?

Michigan’s justice system cannot survive a double standard in which some judges are accountable and others are untouchable.

Detroit has shown that the wall of impunity can fall. Lansing must be next.