A brutal man, Christopher Ambrose of Madison, CT, wants to physically force his teenage children – Mia, 16, Mathew, 16, and Sawyer, 13, to live with him.
They accuse him of sexual abuse and assault.
The three children do not want to live with him. They want to live with their mother, Karen Riordan. They live with their mother now.
But Ambrose is trying to use the CT courts to force them away. This will be a national story.
The three teenagers wrote a letter to my judge, the Hon. Richard J. Arcara in my case, and it was placed on the docket.
All three teens wrote to the judge: “Contrary to what our father would like you to believe, we are happy and safe with our mother, Ms. Karen Riordan. Our mother validates our experiences and supports our efforts to bring the truth to light.”
The reference to bringing “the truth to light” refers to their father, Chris Ambrose.
Ambrose tells everyone that the his teenage children should not have a voice in where they wish to live because he has legal custody. He wants the CT courts to force the teens to live with him – much against their wishes – even if it means arresting their mother and arresting them – taking them in handcuffs and forcing them back to his house.
The reason the three Ambrose teenagers wrote a letter to my judge in my case – which is not related to them or their father – is because their father wrote five letters to Judge Arcara to persuade him to imprison me.
Judge Arcara chose not to imprison me, and Ambrose has stepped up his efforts to imprison his children back at his isolated rural house.
But it was not for lack of effort. Ambrose’s five letters to the judge were dated November 14, 2022, March 14, 2023, May 26, 2023, July 1, 2023 and July 25, 2023.
In this series, of which this is part #1, I will take excerpts from Ambrose’s five letters which you can read here and here and the teenage children’s letter, which you can read here.
In his letters to the judge, Ambrose blames me for his problems with his children and in his life instead of his own behavior.
Chris Ambrose has fought in court for the arrest of the mother of his children and his children but failed so far….
Ambrose wrote:
Frank Parlato, Jr… has terrorized my family by publishing over 75 viciously defamatory articles about me… His online publications have caused us emotional harm and financial ruin and incited readers to threaten me; more concerning still because he’s also published my home address where I live with my kids.
Parlato:
Let’s start with analyzing Ambrose’s ability to tell the truth.
Lie #1
‘Published My Home Address’
Ambrose said, Parlato “published my home address where I live with my kids.”
I never published his home address.
Lie #2
‘Where I live with my kids’
Ambrose wrote that Parlato published “my home address where I live with my kids.”
When he wrote this letter in July 2023, none of his kids lived with him. All three ran away from his home to escape from his abuse, they said.
Matthew, Mia and Sawyer wrote to Judge Arcara:
“Chris Ambrose’s narrative, which places blame on Frank Parlato for the problems we’ve experienced is a smokescreen to mask his own actions. We would like to make it clear that Mr. Parlato has been our hope. He has been a beacon of support through our journey of torment at the hands of Chris Ambrose, and not a source of problems as our father insists….
“He wants Frank Parlato in prison to discredit our truth, and to make Frank an evil person when it’s just the opposite. He wants to silence Frank Parlato as he has managed to silence his own children for four years. Please don’t allow this to happen. Our father’s claims against Mr. Parlato and our mother are baseless and are designed to shift blame from himself. We implore you to consider our experience and our desire for safety and justice.”
The teenagers went so far as to send signed statements to the US Attorney and the FBI outlining the crimes they say their father committed against them. The teenagers provided me with these letters to law enforcement, which I will publish in a subsequent post.
Lie #3
Parlato Ended My Career as a TV Writer/Producer
Ambrose wrote:
I have never met or spoken with Mr. Parlato and hadn’t even heard of him until October 3, 2021, when he began publishing life-destroying lies about me and confidential information about my children on… The Frank Report (frankreport.com)…
Note well the date — October 3, 2021 — which Ambrose admits is the first time he heard about me and the date I first published a story about him.
Ambrose wrote:
Parlato has … decimated my professional life and is even preventing me from making a living. For 20 years, I earned a substantial income as a writer/producer of television series, including Law & Order, NCIS, and Bones. My agent gets me work in network television. He has to explain the dozens of defamatory articles Parlato has posted…
Network/studio execs are afraid that Parlato will come after the network, the show, or the lead actor if they hire me. Who would take that risk?… So Parlato has effectively ended a career I’ve been building diligently for 20 years.
Ambrose tells the truth that for years he was gainfully employed as a network TV producer and writer.
IMDb, [Internet Movie Database], an online database that contains information related to films, television programs, and streaming content, is probably the most authoritative source of information about films and television on the internet.
Chris Ambrose has his own IMDb page.
He admits I published my first article about him on October 3, 2021 and he claims I ended his TV career.
Yet, according to IMDb, his last job in TV was 2018 – three years before I published my first story about him.
While he is certain I ruined his TV writing career, I am pretty sure he did it to himself.
Over two years, 2006-2008, he wrote four episodes of Bones, a Fox TV show that aired for 12 years- from 2005 to 2017. After he left Bones, he went on to work for other TV shows.
In 2018, ten years after he left Bones, Ambrose went to work for CBS’s Instinct.
He “wrote” the show’s third episode “Secrets and Lies,” which aired on April 1, 2018.
An estimated 6.6 million people viewed the show and some of them took to social media to accuse Ambrose of stealing the plot from an October 2009, episode of Bones, “The Plain in the Prodigy” (Season 5, Episode 3).
Two days later – on April 3, 2018, Plagiarism Today (PT) reported Did Instinct Plagiarize Bones?
The the industry publications reported.
CinemaBlend wrote: CBS’ Instinct Accused Of Ripping Off Plotline From Fox’s Bones
The Wrap wrote: CBS crime drama has been accused of ripping off long-running Fox procedural
Quartz wrote: An unspeakable crime has been committed in the world of TV police procedurals
Quartz reported: The person credited in IMDb with writing the Instinct episode is Christopher Ambrose, who was a writer and producer on Bones from 2006 to 2008. The Bones episode that Instinct clearly lifts from, however, is credited to Bones producer Karine Rosenthal and didn’t air until October 2009—a year after Ambrose’s last Bones credit.
Even TV Guide had to report it, which shows how seriously the TV industry considers plagiarism. CBS owns TV Guide, and Instinct was a CBS show.
TV Guide reported The Video Evidence That Instinct Ripped Off Bones Is Damning
Ambrose was fired and he has not worked a day in TV or movies since 2018.
Yet he blames his career loss to me, going so far as to say network executives are afraid to hire him because I might attack them. Ambrose’s last credit on IMDb was Secrets and Lies.
Lie #4
His false allegations that Riordan is mentally ill
Ambrose has accused his ex-wife, Riordan of being mentally ill. There is no known diagnosis of this. And Ambrose is not competent to make a mental health diagnosis.
Riordan was diagnosed by her own therapist, Dr. Margaret Coffey, a psychiatrist.
Dr. Margaret Coffey….
Dr. Coffey wrote “It is my professional medical opinion that Ms. Riordan is not mentally ill. Furthermore, she does not meet the DSM V diagnostic criteria for any Major Personality Disorders.
“When I met Ms. Riordan, she was in the middle of a divorce which was extremely difficult. She was anxious, stressed and concerned for her safety and the safety of her three children. She was worried because her husband (a lawyer and screenwriter of crime shows-a master storyteller) ‘is a pathological liar’. She was observing him to spin tales and lie about her and her emotional and mental instability.
“This mischaracterization threatened Ms. Riordan because this complete falsehood posed an existential threat to her and her children. Ms. Riordan has unequivocally shown no evidence of emotional or mental instability nor signs or symptoms consistent with a personality disorder.
“My initial assessment of Ms. Riordan was that of a high functioning woman who was anxious and afraid due to the ongoing turmoil with her husband. In spite of this upheaval, she was taking care of her children: they were attending school, therapy appointments and doing their homework…. she was an exemplary mother. At no time did I ever question Ms. Riordan’s ability to parent.
“When the court went in favor of Mr. Ambrose for custody, Ms. Riordan was devastated. Yet she continued to function at a high level, doing whatever she could to regain custody of her kids. She wrote letters, marshaled friends and family for support all the while enduring the agonizing loss of all contact with her children.
“Over the past nine months I have gotten to know Ms. Riordan very well. Her strength and fortitude during this time is remarkable. I have watched her in real time deal with stress that would annihilate most people. She soldiers on in the face of adversity. Over the course of my continued close observation of Ms. Riordan, I have not seen sign or symptoms that would lend credence to any experienced practitioner to consider an Axis 1 or Axis 2 diagnosis.”
On the other hand, one of the premier psychiatrists in custody and divorce cases, Dr. Bandy X. Lee, had a view of Ambrose that warrants our fullest attention if we value the safety of the three teenage children who are the targets of Ambrose.
Dr. Bandy X. Lee…
Dr. Lee wrote in a letter addressed to Karen Riordan and submitted to law enforcement that the mentally ill person is not Riordan, but very likely Ambrose.
Dr. Lee wrote:
On April 23, 2023, while interviewing you at your home, I came to witness the interaction between you and your sixteen-year-old daughter, who had just run away from Mr. Ambrose’s house, where she felt unsafe and under emotional and physical assault, in order to return to your care. It was the first time you had seen her in three years, but your words for each other and physical embrace were full of warmth and affection….
I believe I have enough information to make a preliminary assessment of your ex-husband’s personality configuration—with an emphasis on the extent to which he may manifest characteristics of psychopathic personality….
Dr. Lee went on to explain her process and especially how to evaluate a person “afflicted with Psychopathy” who “are prone to lying, deceiving, and beguiling whoever is in their presence.”
Mia, 16 was sexually abused and assaulted by her father for three years when she was isolated from her mother. She ran away from him when she turned 16. Ambrose is trying to arrest her and force her back to his home.
Dr. Lee explains it is “a common characteristic of psychopathic individuals to mislead, cheat, or otherwise violate the rights of other people. They, through a superficially-charming presentation, are often capable of eliciting exceptional levels of sympathy from others as an effective means of escaping accountability for their violence.”
She pointed out what Ambrose had done to his children and their mother: “Separating growing children from their mother and primary caregiver is one of the worst forms of abuse, which can have lifelong ramifications as well as decades of loss of life for each child—and can be a sign of this dangerous personality disorder.”
Dr Lee wrote:
“Psychopathy occurs on a spectrum, and therefore persons scoring in the slightly lower range of 25 to 29 are still considered at risk of being, if not already, dangerous. A ‘full’ diagnosis of psychopathy—a score above 30—raises many alarms and could be a contraindication to parenting….
“Mr. Ambrose’s score adds up to 32. This is strongly suggestive that a diagnosis of psychopathy is present and justified—or, at the very least, that disturbing levels of psychopathic features are present.
“To develop greater certainty about his diagnosis, there should be an attempt to interview Mr. Ambrose, as well as additional collateral interviews. An arrangement through criminal, domestic violence, or juvenile court to this end would best help protect you as well as the evaluator. Although I have the necessary qualifications through my twenty-five years of practice of forensic psychiatry, requisite training in the administration of the PCL-R, as well as specialization in dangerous personality disorders, a local forensic psychiatrist or forensic psychologist may more effectively be engaged in making a definitive diagnosis of your ex-husband.
“Whatever you decide, this potential for Mr. Ambrose’s dangerousness, especially where children are involved, should not be overlooked.“
The teenage children of Chris Ambrose have asked to be heard. They recount tales of Ambrose’s danger, his lies and his criminal conduct.
There is so much evidence and it is almost certain that law enforcement will take an interest in Ambrose’s arrest and conviction.
As a small example, look at this short interview of Sawyer, now 13, when he was 10 explaining to famed private investigator Manual Gomez what his father was doing to him.
Within hours Ambrose got the police to force his children then 13, 13 and 10 back to his home. How they suffered over the next three years they have told FR.
Ambrose himself is pushing for his own arrest, forcing the children to tell all that he has done to them.
Ambrose’s latest tactic, which he will present in CT Superior Court tomorrow at 9:30am is to get a judge to issue, on the teenagers’ behalf, a restraining order against their own mother – by claiming she is mentally ill. Ambrose, totally against his children’s wishes, will try to persuade a judge to require the children’s mother to stay 100 yards away from them via a restraining order.
He filed a restraining order once before, on Mia’s behalf, and CT Superior Court Judge Eddie Rodriguez denied the motion, clearly taking into consideration the fact that Mia wanted to live with her mother. All three children have their own attorneys in CT juvenile court, where they are attempting to prevent their father from abusing them further. Ambrose seeks to circumvent juvenile court by taking the matter to CT Superior Court. Ambrose lied by omission on his application to Superior Court, claiming that he knew of no other legal actions that would affect his application to remove the mother from the children’s lives.
Whether the Court will charge him with perjury for this blatant lie remains to be seen.
Sawyer’s Own Words
Listen to Sawyer here and decide for yourself. This is the tip of the iceberg.
Sawyer Ambrose: He was touching me in my private parts.
Manuel Gomez: Can you demonstrate to me what he was doing to you?
Sawyer Ambrose: He was like touching me right here.
Manuel Gomez: All right, and how often was he doing that? Did you tell him to stop? And what did he say when you told him to stop?
Sawyer Ambrose: He didn’t say anything. He just kept on doing it.
Manuel Gomez: Did he ever show himself naked to you?
Sawyer Ambrose: Sometimes when he was in the shower, sometimes, well, like not on purpose, but sometimes there weren’t any towels, and then he had to go get his clothes naked.
Manuel Gomez: But did he let – in front of you, he did that?
Sawyer Ambrose: Um, sometimes.
Photos, videos, and audios back Sawyer’s claims and are in FR’s possession.
To save themselves from abuse, Ambrose’s own children – kept captive in his house by order of CT Family Court took to filming and recording their father’s abuse because, they said, their father was such a clever liar that no on would believe them otherwise.
The teens have provided FR with hundreds of photos, videos and audios or Ambrose abusing his children. Some of them are obscene and we cannot publish them. But many are not and will document the abuse these children have undergone for three years and why they ran from him.
Ambrose, instead of letting his children live in peace and safety with their mother, is pushing as hard as he can to force them back. Perhaps he believes that if he can force them back he can silence them and avoided arrest and prison. Foolish Ambrose. Very likely if he left them in peace, they might try to heal and avoid his menace.
Stay tuned for part 2.
Matthew, athletic and wiry, fled from Ambrose’s abuse when he turned 16. A budding writer and quiet intellectual, Matthew has vowed not to let his sister and brother be forced to return to his father’s home of abuse. He has stood up to police threats and his father’s intimidation – saying he is safe with his mother and he will not permit his siblings to be abused any more. His bravery in the face of his dangerous father’s threats we hope will be a inspiration to all lost children everywhere.
Please stand by and help FR protect these children from the dangerous Chris Ambrose.
