It took me more than 5 months in different attempts to write this letter because I had panic attacks followed by profound depression and withdrawal each time I remembered how I was denigrated, ignored, bullied, and tortured during my divorce. Despite the medications I’ve been taking, my energy and my abilities to concentrate, think clearly, and express myself in English, which is my third language, have significantly deteriorated. Nonetheless, I dare to write to you because this is my last option: you authorized this torture and you have the power to stop it. You wouldn’t want to be tortured for being ethical, honest, intelligent and courageous, so please stop my torture.

I apologized in advance for the discomfort this letter is likely to cause. You would not want to know that on September 14, 2007 I was tortured by one of your own kind, the family law trial judge James Bertoli of the Sonoma Superior Court. The torture was Judge Bertoli’s punishment to me for telling the truth and for my requests for his disqualification in my divorce litigation. According to the Code of Civil Procedure section 170.3(c)(5), Judge Bertoli had no authority to hear and decide the merits of my statement of his disqualification. But he did it anyway, enjoying inquisition and torturing me. During the torture, I saw him smiling. I wonder how many family law trial judges in California have antisocial personalities and whether they ever get tested on psychological profiles.

Dear Chief Justice George, do you remember a puddle of blood that you saw in a hallway of the main Los Angeles courthouse a few years ago, the blood left after a physician involved in a divorce had fatally shot his wife? I wish my husband shot me three years ago, when he started our divorce litigation, instead of forcing me to experience denigration, humiliation, and torture for three years.

As Judge Bertoli stated on November 9, 2007, you had approved of his actions by summarily denying my timely filed statutory Petitions for Writ, cases A114136, A119409, A119881 and my Petition for Review, case S157866. That means that you, the highest judges of the State of California, legalized the torture.

As a result of abuse and torture during my divorce, I have neither power nor intelligence any more: my brain functioning has profoundly deteriorated, and I have already developed severe anxiety, panic disorder, major depression, and a post-traumatic stress disorder.[1] I can no longer concentrate and think clearly. It is likely that after this letter I will be punished, tortured, and send to jail for “contempt” of court. I would rather take my life than become a slave.[2]

Before I go, I would like you to know what I, Dr. Natalia A. Sidiakina, a Self-Represented Fool, felt during my torture. I volunteer to be tortured again and executed if any of you would like to see for yourself what a torture can do to an intelligent, honest, ethical, and courageous woman. I will make an excellent Guinea Pig because I used to be extremely intelligent, educated, and focused, probably top 0.01% of the population. Recording deterioration of my brain and personality by torture will be invaluable from the scientific point of view.

I call the hearing of September 14, 2007 before Judge Bertoli a torture because what happened on September 14, 2007, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, falls into the definition of torture.[3] I use the word “torture” as it is appropriate even in the strictest definition as an action causing a failure of an organ. During the torture at the hearing on September 14, 2007 and as a result of that torture many times afterwards, I suffered severe panic attacks causing brain failures, which likely resulted in a permanent damage to my brain.[4]

As you know, there is no jury in the family law proceedings, and a divorce case gets assigned to one judge for all purposes. The fundamental requirement of the due process of law is to have an unbiased and competent judge ruling in the case. If the assigned judge is biased for any reason, the only way to have an impartial judge is to request a disqualification of the assigned judge.

An unbiased judge has no interest in the case and, therefore, will gladly recuse himself at the request of a party. A biased judge, to the contrary, has an interest in the outcome of the case and, therefore, wants to control the case. A biased judge, consequently, will likely refuse to recuse himself or herself and will harbor hostility against and seek to punish the party that requested disqualification.

After listening to Judge Bertoli at the hearings and analyzing his decision, I came to the conclusion that Judge Bertoli suffers from some kind of cognitive impairment. Several family law attorneys practicing in Sonoma County shared my conclusion. In fear of retaliation, no attorney dared to openly mention Judge Bertoli’s condition. Since social behavior is a result of a complex cognition, the first signs of cognitive impairment involve inappropriate social behavior.

My husband, Siamak Navid, is a Muslim from Iran. He controls all community property and has access to large funds. In June of 2005, after 5.5 years of marriage, he told me that he wanted to be divorced. I did not want to go through divorce because I had a breast lump, which doctors suspected to be a cancer, and was expecting a surgery. My husband promised to take care of me and not to litigate the divorce. On July 3, 2005, he proposed a separation agreement, which we thoroughly discussed, agreed upon, co-wrote, and signed.[5] He proposed and I agreed that the divorce judgment would be based on the separation agreement and that I would file the papers. I prepared and filed the papers a couple of weeks later. Then my husband told me that he had changed his mind and started the litigation.

Siamak Navid has been represented by three influential family law specialists, to whom he has paid over $100,000 and one of whom, Bruce Schwartz, was a friend of Judge Rosenfield, originally assigned to the case. With the assistance of his attorneys, my husband punished me for his arrest for battery and domestic violence against me,[6] successfully concealed and misrepresented the value of his separate and community property assets,[7], [8], [9], [10] and received everything he wanted. My motions to re-open discovery were vigorously opposed by his attorneys Bruce Schwartz and Carla Boyd, and denied by Judge Rosenfield, who stated that, despite “re-opening discovery was in the interests of justice and equity”(VII RT 277:9-17)[11], he would not re-open it because “the Court hears [from Carla Boyd]  …that discovery … apparently has been produced. …Ms. Sidiakina has dug a hole here…”(VII RT 284:12-28). By the end of 2007, after I spent over $50,000 in attorney’s fees from my separate property, I had nothing left, and my former attorneys dumped me.

After I discovered several perjuries in my husband’s Preliminary Declaration of Disclosure and several mistakes of fact and law made by my former attorneys, on December 28, 2006, I filed a motion for trial or evidentiary hearing on the contested issues of material facts in my case. My husband’s attorneys vigorously opposed it, and Judge Bertoli tentatively denied it on April 12, 2007 and continued the hearing. On May 7, 2007, I filed a motion for attorney’s fees from the community property because I physically could not represent myself. Per request of my husband’s attorney J. Benoit, Judge Bertoli removed my motions for attorney’s fees and for trial or evidentiary hearing from the calendar. After I called the clerk several times, my motions were scheduled AFTER my husband’s motion to enter summary judgment according to my husband’s terms, which was filed on August 1, 2007 and scheduled for hearing on September 14, 2007.

After Judge Bertoli denied my right to due process of law, I knew that Judge Bertoli was biased against me. At the end of May of 2007, I requested Judge Bertoli’s disqualification, but he refused to disqualify himself. I was convinced that Judge Bertoli was personally prejudiced against me and would not hesitate to send me to jail for filing pleading (Statement of Disqualification, filed 9/14/07 before the hearing), stating facts and logical conclusions from those facts proving that Judge Bertoli lied several times in his declaration under the penalty of perjury in order to remain a judge in my divorce case, to punish me, and to make decisions which my husband’s attorneys requested. The day before the hearing, I borrowed $1,000 from friends to bail myself out of jail. I could not sleep all night before the hearing.

Shortly before the hearings of all matters on September 14, 2007, I gave the keys of my car and a $1,000 check for bail to my bankruptcy attorney Douglas Provencher, who was in the courtroom to address the bankruptcy issues, and asked Mr. Provencher to take care of my baby dog, who was in the car during the hearing. I told Mr. Provencher that I would hide in the parking lot and wait for him there. Mr. Provencher advised me that if I left, the outcome would be much worse for me and I would waive any opportunity to object.

On September 14, 2007, I was self-represented whereas my husband was represented by two influential family law attorneys, James Benoit and Carla Boyd. Judge Bertoli moved my case to the very end, after all other hearings that day. At the beginning of the hearing, Judge Bertoli stated: “…if it’s what I think it is [statement of disqualification], Ms. Sidiakina, you’re going to be prepared to argue as to why I shouldn’t sanction you” (5RT 203:15-17)[12]. I expected that Judge Bertoli would punish me with all his cruelty and started having a panic attack with severe heart pain, migraine, and stomach cramps.

After Judge Bertoli stated: “I will say to you, Ms. Sidiakina, I have never been so insulted in my almost seven years on the bench”, I lost my breath and could not say anything for few minutes. When I tried to speak, I had almost no voice (5RT 205:7-12). During the hearing, I advised Judge Bertoli multiple times that I was physically unable to represent myself, that I had an anxiety attack and could not think clearly, that I was terrified because Judge Bertoli could punish me by sending me to jail, that I could not handle Judge Bertoli’s inquisition (5RT 205-211) . My voice and hands were trembling and I was sweating so much that my top became completely wet. 

I was unable to stand. I remained seated next to Mr. Provencher as it was the only place in the courtroom where I could remain without running out of the courtroom. Every time I looked at Judge Bertoli, I had an impulse to vomit. I had to put on sunglasses so I could close my eyes without exacerbating Judge Bertoli’s anger. I was terrified of the thought that I could not control my body and could involuntarily urinate as a result of the bladder muscles spasms.

At one time during my answer to Judge Bertoli’s interrogations, my voice broke, and I felt suffocating. Another time during the dialog between my husband’s attorney James Benoit and Judge Bertoli, I could not breathe at all, and my heart hurt so bad that I felt I was dying. Then my brain went blank. I don’t know how long it lasted, maybe few minutes. I lost the track of time and the dialog. Because of fear and distress, I was unable to remember words in English and properly say what I wanted to say. I felt like a rat that is getting repeated electric shocks in the cage that it cannot escape.

After the hearing, my body was shaking and I could barely walk out of the courtroom. Mr. Provencher walked me to my car and spent approximately 20 minutes with me to make sure I didn’t lose consciousness. After that, I sat in my car for another hour before I was able to drive. That night I had another panic attack with severe chest pain, migraine and stomach cramps, and spent over 4 hours vomiting in the bathroom. Since that hearing, every time I receive an envelope from the Sonoma Superior Court, I start having a panic attack. 

To amplify the torture, the former Presiding Judge Boyd of the Sonoma Superior Court refused to properly respond to my follow-up notice of disqualification of Judge Bertoli as a matter of law, which I personally delivered to Judge Boyd’s chambers on October 2, 2007. I don’t know how my husband’s attorney Carla Boyd and Judge Boyd are related, but I know that Carla Boyd intentionally violated many procedural and local rules[13], intentionally misrepresented the law and the facts to trial judges[14], committed fraud, and perfectly got away with that. Judge Bertoli denied my requests for sanctions against her.[15]

Former Presiding Judge Boyd violated the Code of Civil Procedure section 170.3 (c)(5) and did not request the clerk to notify the executive officer of the Judicial Council of a need to select another judge to decide whether Judge Bertoli’s refusal to recuse himself and his inquisition of me and torture were legally correct. Instead, former Presiding Judge Boyd sent my follow-up notice of disqualification directly to Judge Bertoli himself, which naturally resulted in more punishment and sanctions on October 3, 2007.

Because my husband started the litigation in our divorce, I could not escape the courtroom, which to me represents the torture chambers. Consequently, I developed a number of brain diseases, which in animal studies are referred to as “learned helplessness”[16], [17] and in psychology and psychiatry are called “situational anxiety, panic disorder, major depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder” (see my doctor’s letters)."