My Formal Complaint to the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission

MICHIGAN JUDICIAL TENURE COMMISSION
REQUEST FOR INVESTIGATION
STATEMENT OF FACTS AND FORMAL COMPLAINT

Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission
3034 West Grand Boulevard, Suite 8-450
Detroit, MI 48202

Re: Complaint Against the Honorable Yvonna C. Abraham, Judge, Third Judicial Circuit Court of Michigan (Wayne County), Family Division
Underlying Case: Hampton v. Jones, Wayne County Circuit Court Case No. 17-163353-DP

From: Gregory Charles Jones (Grievant), Pro Se Litigant and Father
[home address and phone number withheld here for my own safety] · gregoryjones70@gmail.com

I. Introduction

I, Gregory Charles Jones, respectfully submit this Statement of Facts in support of a Request for Investigation into the conduct of the Honorable Yvonna C. Abraham, a judge of the Third Judicial Circuit Court of Wayne County, Michigan, currently presiding over Case No. 17-163353-DP (Hampton v. Jones), a paternity and custody matter involving my three minor children: Bilal Jones, Jameel Jones, and Maryam Jones.

This complaint concerns a documented pattern of conduct by Judge Abraham that I believe violates the Michigan Code of Judicial Conduct, including the duty to perform judicial duties impartially and diligently, to afford every person the right to be heard according to law, to avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety, and to disqualify herself where her impartiality might reasonably be questioned. The conduct described below includes: incarcerating me for six weeks without a trial over a single missed court date; terminating a Personal Protection Order and removing a LEIN entry protecting my son Jameel in a manner that contributed to the acquittal of the man who strangled my son Bilal; ordering an armed raid on my home and the removal of all three of my children the day after that termination; stating in open court that she was "not a mandated reporter" and did not have to allow evidence of child abuse into her courtroom; ordering me jailed during a panic attack her own conduct caused, without medical evaluation; conditioning my ADA accommodations on her personal discretion through court staff; and, most seriously, proceeding with an evidentiary hearing and a parenting-time suspension and seizure order concerning my daughter Maryam while I was hospitalized and unable to attend, despite being on notice of two independent clinical evaluations documenting that Maryam had a specific, named suicide plan triggered by the very custody transfer the court was ordering.

Each factual allegation below is drawn from Judge Abraham's own signed orders, from sworn or clinician-authored documents, or from my own federal court filings and personal knowledge as noted. Supporting documents are organized as exhibits and described in Section IV below; I can provide any of them to the Commission on request.

II. Background

1. I am a U.S. military veteran rated 50% service-connected disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs, and I have been diagnosed with lung cancer. I have three children: Bilal Jones (born December 30, 2009), Jameel Jones, and Maryam Jones (born March 10, 2013).

2. In 2020, my son Bilal was strangled by his mother, Tenisha Hampton. This was confirmed by an official Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Children's Protective Services Investigation Report (Case ID 87172544, Investigation ID 151503286), which found by a preponderance of the evidence that Hampton committed physical and mental injury against Bilal and placed her on Michigan's Central Registry for Child Abuse and Neglect. The same report reviewed separate allegations made against me and did not substantiate them.

3. In June 2024, Bilal was strangled a second time, this time by Hampton's live-in boyfriend, Douglas McClain, while Hampton was present. Bilal's siblings, Jameel and Maryam, witnessed the assault. A Personal Protection Order (PPO) was obtained on Jameel's behalf against McClain and entered into the Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN); Judge Abraham was not the judge who issued that PPO.

III. Statement of Facts (Chronological)

4. On November 1, 2024, Judge Abraham denied, without a hearing, a PPO petition I filed (Gregory Jones v. Tenisha Hampton).

5. On November 5, 2024, Judge Abraham denied, as a group and without a hearing, all ten of my pending ex parte emergency motions, setting them for hearing on November 26, 2024.

6. On November 26, 2024, Judge Abraham individually ruled on those ten motions: nine were denied and one was ruled moot. A contempt hearing was adjourned to December 4, 2024.

7. On December 4, 2024, following that hearing, Judge Abraham found me in contempt of court and sentenced me to 60 days in jail with no early release, and issued a $10,000 bench warrant. The same day, in a related order, she authorized Tenisha Hampton to retrieve Jameel and Maryam from my home with law-enforcement assistance, stating that "law enforcement may use force, if necessary."

8. On December 19, 2024, Judge Abraham sua sponte terminated the PPO protecting Jameel from Douglas McClain and ordered it removed from LEIN, ruling that the petition was "improperly filed" and that Jameel "is not the alleged victim" of the strangulation he witnessed. I have alleged in federal filings that Judge Abraham, a Wayne County judge, had no jurisdiction over the related Macomb County criminal trial against McClain, and that this order was accordingly ultra vires.

9. On December 20, 2024 -- the very next day -- Judge Abraham ordered the Wayne County Sheriff to raid my Oakland County home. Deputies arrested me and removed all three of my children, placing them with Douglas McClain and Tenisha Hampton. I was jailed for roughly six weeks without a trial on the underlying custody matter, over missing a single prior court date.

10. Within a day of that raid, Tenisha Hampton placed Bilal in a psychiatric/mental health facility after having him in her care less than 24 hours. The following day, Hampton gave Maryam to my mother rather than keep her herself.

11. In the weeks that followed, at Wayne County Jail, I was denied phone access for the first two and a half weeks of my incarceration while I was being diagnosed with lung cancer.

12. In the subsequent criminal proceeding against Douglas McClain in Macomb County, prosecutors did not call Jameel or Maryam as witnesses to the strangulation they had witnessed, and McClain was acquitted. I allege that the removal of the PPO and LEIN entry eliminated the formal record of McClain's prior violent conduct and contributed directly to that outcome.

13. On February 21, 2025, at a hearing in Case No. 17-163353-DP, Judge Abraham stated on the record that she "was not a mandated reporter" and did not have to allow evidence of child abuse into her courtroom. At that same hearing, when I suffered a panic attack that I allege her conduct caused, she ordered me jailed during the panic attack without any medical evaluation.

14. Throughout 2025, I submitted repeated ADA accommodation requests (including for remote/video participation due to documented medical and psychiatric disability) to the Third Judicial Circuit Court. Frank Hardester, the court's ADA Coordinator, and Frances Yturri, the court's General Counsel, both indicated in writing that my ADA accommodations existed only at Judge Abraham's discretion -- for example, deputies told me directly that remote-hearing requests were being denied "because Judge Abraham says so." I allege this improperly delegates a federally protected right to the presiding judge whose orders I was contemporaneously challenging.

15. On August 21, 2025, Maryam's therapist, Tiffany Bacon, LMSW of Oakland Family Services, documented in a signed Crisis Plan that Maryam "experienced suicidal ideation while living with mom" and "denies any suicidal ideation since living with dad."

16. On September 12, 2025, Individual Plan of Service (IPOS) meetings for both Maryam and Bilal, conducted by Oakland Family Services, documented that Maryam "experienced SI [suicidal ideation] when she lived with her mother" and had a history of self-harm, and that Bilal had also experienced suicidal ideation as a child. Both plans included a standing safety objective directing our family to follow a crisis plan to reduce suicidal ideation risk.

17. On October 17, 2025, Tiffany Bacon signed a letter stating that Maryam "has expressed concern and worry that she may be placed into the custody of her mother," that this prospect "has caused Maryam to have suicidal thoughts," that Maryam "identif[ied] ways to carry out her plan for suicide, [specific method withheld here]," and that Maryam "prefers to continue living with her father as she reports feeling safe with him."

18. On October 27, 2025, I emailed this letter directly to Judge Abraham's courtroom and to the Office of Chief Judge Patricia Perez Fresard, with the subject line "Suicide," stating that I was informing the court and Child Protective Services of a documented, clinically verified suicide risk to my daughter tied to the custody arrangement then before the court. Judge Abraham's courtroom responded only with an instruction to file the exhibit ahead of trial through the ordinary domestic filing system, with no indication that any protective or emergency action was taken in response.

19. On December 1, 2025, while I was hospitalized for emergency medical treatment and unable to attend, Judge Abraham held an evidentiary hearing in Case No. 17-163353-DP. She was aware, or should have been aware, of my hospitalization and of the documented clinical suicide-risk evidence already in the record. Despite this, she suspended all of my parenting time and authorized law enforcement to locate and seize Maryam from me or from any third party, including my mother, without ADA accommodations for my participation and without findings addressing the clinical evidence that the ordered placement was the specific, named trigger for Maryam's suicidal ideation.

20. On December 8, 2025, a crisis clinician at New Oakland Family Centers independently confirmed Maryam's suicidal ideation, found no trigger other than the prospective custody transfer, and recommended a Partial Hospitalization Program. This was the second independent clinical agency to document the same risk.

21. As of the date of this complaint, I have not seen or heard the voice of my son Jameel since the December 20, 2024 raid -- approximately one year and eight months. Bilal and Maryam are, to my knowledge, not permitted to see or hear his voice either; they are only able to interact with what they believe is Jameel through the online game Roblox.

IV. Grounds for Investigation

I believe the conduct described above, taken as a whole, reflects a pattern inconsistent with the Michigan Code of Judicial Conduct, including but not limited to the duty to perform judicial duties impartially and diligently (Canon 3), the duty to afford every person who has a legal interest in a proceeding, or that person's lawyer, the right to be heard according to law, the duty to avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities (Canon 2), and the duty to disqualify herself in a proceeding in which her impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Specific concerns include:

A. Incarceration without a hearing on the merits. I was jailed for approximately six weeks over a single missed court date, without a trial or evidentiary hearing on the underlying custody dispute that triggered the contempt finding.

B. Non-judicial, administrative retaliation. The termination of the PPO/LEIN entry, the denial of ADA accommodations, and directives to court staff to refuse or suppress filings and evidence are, I believe, administrative and non-adjudicative acts taken in apparent retaliation for my filing of federal complaints, grievances, and ADA requests, rather than judicial rulings entitled to the deference judicial acts normally receive.

C. Refusal to consider evidence of documented child abuse. Judge Abraham's statement that she "was not a mandated reporter" and need not admit child-abuse evidence in her courtroom, together with her refusal to admit evidence of Bilal's confirmed strangulations when I attempted to present it, denied me and my children a meaningful opportunity to be heard on matters directly bearing on their safety.

D. Jurisdictional overreach. The termination of a PPO and LEIN entry connected to a criminal matter in another county (Macomb County), and the ordering of a raid on a home in another county (Oakland County), raise serious questions about whether Judge Abraham acted within the scope of her jurisdiction as a Wayne County Circuit Court judge.

E. Disregard of documented, clinically verified suicide risk. By December 1, 2025, Judge Abraham had been provided with, or had constructive notice of, two independent clinical evaluations -- from Oakland Family Services and New Oakland Family Centers -- documenting that my daughter Maryam had suicidal ideation and a specific suicide plan directly and solely triggered by the custody transfer the court was ordering. Proceeding with that transfer, while I was hospitalized and unable to participate, without addressing that evidence, is at the center of this complaint.

F. ADA Title II concerns. Court staff informed me in writing that my ADA accommodations existed only at Judge Abraham's discretion. I believe this improperly conditions a federally protected right on the goodwill of the very judge whose orders I was contemporaneously contesting.

V. Relief Requested

I respectfully request that the Commission open a formal investigation into the conduct described above, and that it take whatever action -- including private admonition, public censure, suspension, or referral for removal -- it deems appropriate under Michigan Court Rule 9.200 et seq. and the Michigan Constitution. I understand the Commission is not a court and cannot alter the rulings in my underlying case; I am pursuing appellate and federal civil-rights remedies separately for that purpose. This complaint concerns Judge Abraham's fitness to continue serving as a judicial officer in light of the conduct described.

VI. Supporting Documentation

The following documents support this complaint and are available on request. They are organized chronologically in a folder titled "Judge Abraham - Lawsuits and Court Rulings":

Folder 1 -- Every ruling and order signed by Judge Abraham in Case No. 17-163353-DP and the related PPO case, in chronological order (November 2024 through December 2025).

Folder 2 -- ADA accommodation denial correspondence from Wayne County court administration.

Folder 3 -- Seven federal lawsuits naming Judge Abraham directly as a defendant.

Folder 4 -- Five federal lawsuits arising from her actions but naming other Wayne County officials and agencies as defendants, including the incarceration/medical-care lawsuit against Wayne County, the Sheriff, and jail medical staff.

Folder 5 -- The official MDHHS/CPS Investigation Report substantiating Tenisha Hampton's 2020 strangulation of Bilal Jones (Case ID 87172544).

Folder 6 -- The therapist and clinical records documenting Maryam's and Bilal's suicidal ideation, including the August 21, 2025 Crisis Plan, the September 12, 2025 IPOS meetings, and the October 17, 2025 letter from Tiffany Bacon, LMSW.

A narrative summary of this entire case file is also available as "00 SUMMARY - Lawsuits Concerning Judge Abraham," in the same folder.

VII. Verification

I declare that the facts stated in this Request for Investigation are true to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief.

Gregory Charles Jones, Grievant

Subscribed and sworn to before a Notary Public, State of Michigan, as required by the Commission's official Request for Investigation form.