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'We were there': Court recording raises questions about response to Cape parents seeking help for teen who died

Cape Cod Times - 5/10/2021

May 10—George and Victoria Kelloyan finally have an audio recording of what went on in Barnstable District Court on the December day that a judge denied their request to commit their daughter for substance abuse treatment. Less than two weeks later, the young woman died of an overdose.

The audio recording doesn't tell them the reason why District Court Judge Paul Pino decided not to hear their request for a hearing to commit 19-year-old Tatiana Kelloyan for treatment under a state law known as Section 35.

But it raises haunting questions of what might have been — had the Kelloyans been given an opportunity to make their plea in person.

They never got a chance.

On Dec. 28, the Kelloyans wrote out and filed a petition for a Section 35 hearing, the first step for people seeking to get an individual committed to one of several substance abuse treatment facilities in the state of Massachusetts.

After filling out the two-page form, the Kelloyans said, a court employee directed them to return to their car outside the court building to wait for a call.

Unbeknownst to them, when it came time to review their request, other court employees called out their names in the courtroom, according to the audio recording. They weren't there to hear it.

Nobody in the courtroom called the phone number on the petition request to ask them to appear before the judge, the Kelloyans said.

After 40 minutes of waiting in their Ford Explorer, their phone finally rang. A court employee told them the judge had denied their petition. The employee didn't know why.

Eleven days later, on Jan. 8, Tatiana died in a Hyannis motel after overdosing on fentanyl.

It was a shock to hear what had happened in that courtroom, George Kelloyan said, after he received the audio recording via email last week from court employee Louise Johnson.

"My heart just fell to my stomach. Because we were there. We were in the car. We were still in the car while they were calling our name." George Kelloyan

Not all requests for civil commitments for treatment of substance abuse under Section 35 in Massachusetts get approved.

But in 2020, the overwhelming majority — 3,288 out of 3,650 Section 35 requests in Massachusetts — did result in inpatient commissions.

On Jan. 11, while the Kelloyans were planning a private funeral service, George returned to Barnstable District Court to get a written copy of Pino's denial. The copy was reviewed by a Times reporter.

The denial did not give any reasons or offer any clues to the judge's decision-making process.

Eager for more information, the West Barnstable couple filed more than one request for an audio recording of the courtroom proceedings.

One denial told them they had made a request of probate court, and no hearing had taken place there.

On April 28, George Kelloyan went back to district court, where the proceedings had taken place, with a Times reporter.

There, he spoke to Johnson, who said she had responded to him by email in early April. "I was waiting for your resubmission," she said.

George said he never saw her email.

On

On it, a man's voice can be heard saying it's time to review "the petition on the Kelloyan matter."

"Is a Victoria Kelloyan present? Victoria and George?"

A less audible voice can be heard calling out, "Victoria?"

Another voice closer to the microphone says, "We don't have a phone number."

If that person was talking about the Kelloyans' petition, that person was clearly wrong, George said.

Victoria's cell phone number is listed on the cover page, under the name of the person requesting the Section 35 warrant.

And if anyone had called him and Victoria into the courtroom, they would have been able to provide plenty of information to flesh out the scanty two-page request for a petition, George said.

In the official request, Victoria Kelloyan wrote that Tatiana was using marijuana and strong liquor, had struggled with PTSD, been in two recent accidents, had a history of harming herself, and had "made some threats of suicide."

George said he would have told Pino that in the weeks leading up to Christmas, their normally bubbly daughter had totaled both a PT Cruiser and Honda Accord in the wake of a painful breakup with a boyfriend.

The Kelloyans would have described how Tatiana would leave their home at night against their wishes and return slurring her words, acting confused and threatening to kill herself.

They would have talked about the multiple times the Cotuit-Osterville-Marstons Mills Fire Department had transported Tatiana to Cape Cod Hospital for an evaluation of her physical and mental health.

And they would have let Pino know that it was Barnstable police officers responding to their residence who advised them to pursue a Section 35, which would have committed Tatiana to a facility in Massachusetts for up to 90 days of substance abuse treatment.

Toward the end, Tatiana seemed to realize she needed help, George said.

"My wife told her, 'This can't go on. We're going to section you.' She didn't say no," George said.

An emailed statement Tuesday to the Times from a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Trial Court, which oversees district courts, raised the question of whether Tatiana was an inadvertent victim of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Cape was undergoing a second wave of COVID-19 cases at the time of the Kelloyans' petition request.

"The petitioners were asked to wait in their vehicle because, at that time, health and safety measures were being taken in the courthouse to reduce the occupancy well below normal capacity," the spokeswoman said in an email.

"The judge reviewed the petition. After reviewing the paperwork submitted by the petitioners, the judge denied the petition," the spokeswoman said.

George Kelloyan, who filed a complaint on Feb. 3 of judicial misconduct against Pino with the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, said he wants to see an internal investigation into the decision-making process and whether communication errors occurred. Kelloyan said he has not received a response.

Kelloyan met Tuesday with Charles Ardito, Barnstable District Court clerk magistrate, to seek more information about the decision-making process, but Kelloyan said no new information was forthcoming.

The Massachusetts Trial Court spokeswoman said the matter already "has been reviewed by the District Court."

That answer isn't good enough for the Kelloyans, who said Pino and court officials should have made more of an effort to reach them, especially since their petition mentioned threats of suicide by their 19-year-old daughter.

The court employee said, "Go sit in your car and we will call you," George Kelloyan said.

"I didn't even know we were allowed in the court. Because we weren't there, (Pino) just denied it. It's no way to run a courthouse."

"Someone has to be responsible for this death," he said. "There was no need for (Tatiana) to die."

Contact Cynthia McCormick at cmccormick@capecodonline.com.

Listen: Go to the online version of this story to hear a recording of the court session.

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