Elizabeth Morgan

Jean Elizabeth Morgan, M.D., Ph.D. (born 1947 in Washington, D.C., USA) is a plastic surgeon who was involved in a famous and controversial child custody case, in which she succeeded in denying her ex-husband any contact with their daughter Hilary for almost the entirety of the child's minority, claiming incest. During the course of the case, she was incarcerated for two years, and following her release from prison she went into hiding overseas; the Congress of the United States passed two laws designed to apply to this case alone.

Recent career

Morgan now practises medicine back in the United States in the Washington, D.C. area, having also gained a degree in psychology. She operates a medical practice, and offers herself as a "beacon of hope" that protective parents can free their children from harm.

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Since her return from New Zealand, Morgan has made many public appearances and speeches, focusing on custody issues. An organization called The Friends of Elizabeth Morgan (which later changed its name to ARCH) was on watchlists of groups that monitor child custody issues.

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The Elsa Newman case

In 2002, she was involved as a consultant in another controversial child custody case, where she unintentionally prompted a female United States Department of State career officer to attempt to murder a supposedly abusive father.

Related Topics:
2002 - United States Department of State - Murder

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Elsa Newman, an attorney, was in a custody fight with her husband, Arlen Slobodow. When concerned that Newman represented a flight risk, Judge S. Michael Pincus said, "I don't want another Elizabeth Morgan case in my courtroom." Newman had already consulted Morgan, whose advice in an email was, "I don?t have the answers. I only know the choices, which are grim: Give in and accept the incest, kill the abuser, or grab the kids and run." Interpreting Morgan's second option literally, Newman's closest friend, State Department Foreign Service career officer Margery Lemb Landry (at the time a FO-01, assigned to the Bureau of Consular Affairs to the Office of Children's Issues) on January 7, 2002, broke into Slobodow's home while he was sleeping and, with the children present, shot him twice in the leg. Just before shooting him, Landry had planted child pornography in Slobodow's home in order to help to frame him as a pedophile in case he should survive the attack.

Related Topics:
S. Michael Pincus - Bureau of Consular Affairs - January 7 - 2002 - Child pornography - Frame - Pedophile

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Slobodow did survive; Landry pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to a twenty-year prison term. Newman was convicted of conspiracy in a jury trail, and also received a twenty-year sentence. After their arrests, neither was granted bail. Morgan failed to recognize the hopelessness of Newman's situation; she also attempted to secure Newman's release before her conviction, but she failed in her attempt.

Related Topics:
Murder - Conspiracy - Bail

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Mention in a similar case

On his July 5, 2004 radio show, Larry King made a reference to Morgan in a discussion with New York socialite and former Playboy model Bridget Marks about her ongoing and public custody case. King cited Morgan as a famous surgeon and Harvard graduate who ran from the jurisdiction of a "rogue judge" (Marks' term), but Marks, who had her lawyer present, demurred, saying, "No, never. I believe that the legal system will correct itself."

Related Topics:
July 5 - 2004 - Larry King - Playboy - Bridget Marks - Harvard - Rogue - Legal system

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Although Marks had been found by the court to have lied in her claims of incest, and was punished with a transfer of custody to her spouse, on March 31, 2005 she regained custody through a purely judicial process.

Related Topics:
March 31 - 2005

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