Albany attorney indicted for perjury
3 felony charges for public defender Kyla Mazhary-Clark, for allegedly lying in her own family law matter
Attorney Kyla Mazhary-Clark was recently indicted in Linn County, Oregon, for three counts of perjury related to her own domestic relations case: a case she filed pro se in 2019 (while still a student at Willamette Law) to get custody of a friend’s young children. She received her law license the following year, and was then represented in that family case by another attorney in her own firm, the Law Office of Ivers, Miller & Mazhary-Clark.
Mazhary-Clark is in private practice but is also a state-contracted public defense attorney with the Linn Defenders, a consortium that provides representation to poor defendants through Oregon’s embattled Office of Public Defense Services.
The allegations of perjury apparently stem from false claims Mazhary-Clark made in her “Petition for Psychological Parent Custody.” Prosecutors say that Mazhary-Clark falsely claimed that she was the caregiver to two non-biological children (ages two and three at the time); that she was their aunt; and that they resided with her at the time she filed for custody.
That those claims were false appears to be supported by Mazhary-Clark’s own deposition taken later in the family case.
The criminal charges were brought before a Grand Jury in mid-September, a bench warrant issued on September 22nd, and Mazhary-Clark was booked and released on $1,500 surety on the 25th.
The charges came just days before a motion was filed in the family law case to set aside for fraud, the general judgment that had been signed by Linn County Judge Kittson-MaQatish in 2019. That judgment granted sole custody to Mazhary-Clark, but was won by default.
The motion to set that default aside was filed by the children’s biological mother, Jamie Crompton, who claims that Mazhary-Clark “committed fraud on the court” for those falsehoods, but for also falsely claiming that she didn’t know Crompton’s whereabouts, and therefore could not be served court papers.
Linn judges have now denied three attempts by Crompton to correct the court record, undo the fraud, and get her children back. It is remarkable that the judges and attorneys involved would get wrong something so basic as who the children were actually living with, and whether or not Mazhary-Clark was actually their aunt; and that the judges would be so immune to factual information.
Prosecutors did not respond to questions as to whether Mazhary-Clark might also be charged with custodial interference in the matter; and Mazhary-Clark also did not respond to a request for comments.
Given the fact that the underlying family law case involves some of the same courts and officers of the courts as another notorious case of custodial interference — one which also relied upon ridiculous false claims of “I don’t know where the mom is” — it is natural to wonder if there is more to this pattern than sheer coincidence.
