By Michael Volpe
It was a child custody case so explosive that it made international headlines. It turned one parent – the mother – into a felon, and another – the allegedly abusive father – into a deeply sympathetic figure.
Family court, the police, and the media manufactured a story so profoundly untrue that the mother, Sandra ‘Sam’ Grazzini, has not seen her children in 10 years.
David Rucki and Sandra “Sam” Grazzini first met in junior college in 1984. In 1991, David asked Sam to marry him, and she became Sandra Grazzini-Rucki.
Sandra “Sam” Grazzini and David Rucki
Sam came from an affluent family in Minnesota. Her parents were among the initial investors in what would become Medtronics. David Rucki was a product of a working-class family.
With a loan from Sam’s family, David and Sam started a truck broker business. She also worked as a flight attendant.
The couple had five children: Nico, Samantha, Gianna, Nia, and Geno. All are over eighteen now.
They lived in the Minneapolis suburb of Lakeville, and the Rucki family appeared to have an ideal life. All was not as it seemed.
A few years after they married, Sam claims David began hitting her.
If you’ve seen coverage of this case on 20/20, Minneapolis Star Tribune, KARE, the Daily Mail, and others, you might believe the domestic abuse never occurred.
David had a history of alleged violence. It includes a bar fight, a road rage incident, threatening to kill his in-law, stalking his ex-wife, choking Sam, and violating protective orders.
He allegedly chased his daughter Samantha on her 13th birthday until she barricaded herself in her house. His son, Nico, told CPS that his father stuck a gun to his head when he was eight. See Page 15 of a 25-page CPS report.
His daughter Samantha made an audio in which she stated, “Before the whole divorce, he’d always come home drunk, or he’d beat my mom to no end. I mean he went after her with an organ leg once. He legit went after her with an organ leg.” Samantha said in the audio. “He’s choked, slapped, hit, and verbally abused her.”
In 2009, David Rucki screamed uncontrollably and swore at two- and three-year-olds. Police charged him with disorderly conduct. Judge Karen Asphaug dismissed those charges on the eve of trial.
David Rucki
Sam left David in 2011. A marriage full of abuse turned into one of the easiest divorces ever.
David did not hire a lawyer; he didn’t contest the divorce.
“You take the kids, but give me your half of the trucking business,” David told her, Sam claimed.
So David got the business and Sam got the children.
Judge Tim Wermeger of Dakota County issued a divorce decree on May 12, 2011, stating, “The parties were able to settle all issues arising out of the dissolution of the marriage including child custody and support; spousal maintenance; disposition of real and personal property, and the payment of debts and attorney’s fees.”
A few weeks after the agreement was signed, David retained attorney Lisa Elliott and challenged the divorce. He claimed he didn’t want to get divorced, and thought it was only a paper divorce to save money on insurance and other financial benefits.
Judge David Knutson presided over the action to set aside the divorce. He appointed attorney Julie Friedrich as the guardian ad litem to represent the children.
The so-called paper divorce turned into a real divorce, with David challenging everything from the money to custody.
The problem was that the kids wanted nothing to do with their father.
This was heightened by an incident at daughter Samantha’s twelfth birthday party on June 23, 2011 – where David seemed out of control.
In August 2012, Judge Knutson appointed Paul Reitman to evaluate the family.
“The children appear very depressed and browbeaten,” Reitman would write in his report. Making an illegal diagnosis, he added, “The mother appears out of touch and suffering from a personality disorder.”
Paul Reitman
He recommended taking the kids away from both parents and placing them in “therapeutic foster care.”
Sam told me she remembers the meeting with Reitman lasting less than a half hour, and he asked each of the four kids who were there only one question.
Reitman’s report was used to get an emergency telephonic conference on September 5, 2012. Neither parent attended this conference, neither did Reitman, but it led to an order on September 7, 2012 that removed the children from their mother, whom they wanted to live with and had been living with all their lives.
In this order, Judge Knutson removed custody from both parents. As part of the long term plan to take the children from the mother to fulfill the lofty and profitable goals of parental alienation, David’s sister Tami moved into the home to take temporary custody of her nieces and nephews.
The judge gave Sam three hours to vacate her home.
Judge Knutson appointed a psychologist, Jim Gilbertson, as the therapist to earn money as he made sure that parental alienation was found against Sam.
Everyone was making money, everyone was happy except the children and their mother.
In a recording, daughter Samantha accused kindly Dr. Gilbertson of rubbing her shoulders while sporting an erection.
On the fateful day, when Judge Knutson took one mother away from five children, the unhappy ones were in school. They came home and found their aunt, not their mother, the woman who raised them, in their home.
Judge Knutson
They ran to the police station.
Four of the five – all except Nico – were allowed to live with their maternal aunt Nancy – Sam’s sister. That continued until April 19, 2013.
But the fix was in and the court decided that parental alienation was the cruel winner.
Aunt Nancy was instructed to take Samantha and Gianna for pizza, and then stop at the Lakeville Police station.
There they were treated to the shock therapy parental alienation has in store for children – as it traumatizes them to assuage unhappy but affluent fathers – for David had money now – since he had control of the trucking business.
Yes, the children got their trauma shock. At the police station they were told they’d be going back to live with their aunt Tami, and that their dad would move in and get sole custody.
Dr. ‘Woody’ Gilbertson was on the phone at the police station and he said “that was the plan all along,” he told the girls. Since he was on the phone it is not known if he had an erection when he delivered the devastating news to the girls.
According to old ‘Woody’s notes, though this order was signed on April 19, 2013, everyone knew at least ten days ahead of time that the custody flip was in store.
Here are part of ‘Woody’ Gilbertson’s notes from April 9, 2013.
“I immediately received a call from Ms. {Nancy} Olson stating that she wanted the transfer to occur as soon as possible because of the fear the children will learn of this through some unknown means and will run.
“As noted previously, I spoke with Ms. Frederick {sic} about the utilization of the police department as place to meet with the children.”
The police drove the girls to their home with a missing mother – where gruesome Aunt Tami was waiting.
They were there for 30 minutes before the traumatized children ran away.
The local Fox affiliate ran a story on this divorce weeks after the girls ran. The reporter, Trish Van Pilsum, interviewed the girls in a hotel room shortly after they ran.
“This case highlights something called parental alienation,” that news story started, “and raises the question, ‘could you lose your kids for turning them against your ex?”
You bet your life you can – even if your ex deserves to be shunned.
This was the scam David Rucki was running: a scam known well to Frank Report readers.
Rucki got Gilbertson, Friedrich, and Judge Knutson all to believe this was parental alienation because the kids all feared David – all except Nico – and no one – except the kids believed kindly looking and affluent David was abusive.
He paid his bills and took his choice.
Since this collection of so-called professionals found no reason for dad to be hated, not when he paid them so well – it must have been parental alienation.
Both girls sent audio tapes to Judge Knutson begging to live with their mom, their primary attachment figure.
The good judge was unmoved. But both girls were still missing.
He held a custody trial on September 11-12, 2013.
On the eve of the trial, Sam’s attorney, Michelle MacDonald, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Judge Knutson and others. That only made the judge angry.
She asked him to recuse himself. He declined, but his anger rose to a fever pitch.
On the second day of trial, Michelle took a photo inside the courtroom. She wanted to document the kangaroo nature of the proceedings.
A sheriff’s deputy approached Michelle and detained her. That photo was grounds for contempt of court.
The deputy asked Michelle her name.
“You know my name,” Michelle told him defiantly.
The Deputy threw Michelle into a nearby wheelchair and handcuffed her to it.
He wheeled her in a wheelchair for the rest of the hearing.
Her client was missing, so were the children – they were in hiding.
Michelle made her closing argument handcuffed to a wheelchair.
Judge Knutson decided the case. David got sole custody, and he got to keep all the marital assets.
The two girls remained missing, living quietly with their mother for two years until — on April 19, 2015, Brandon Stahl of the Minneapolis Star Tribune did a story.
The story starts, “On a 30-degree day two years ago, teenage sisters Samantha and Gianna Rucki ran away from their Lakeville home. They didn’t even put on their shoes and coats when they left the house and got into a waiting vehicle.
“The sisters, 14 and 13 at the time, have been missing ever since, two of 25 Minnesota children whose faces are publicized by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Their disappearance followed a bitter custody battle between their parents that has taken turns toward the bizarre. Under court order to help locate their children, both parents say they don’t know where Samantha and Gianna are now. Police say they have followed up on every tip they’ve received. The mother is considered a “person of interest” in the case, said police Detective Jim Dronen.”
Dale Nathan, a disbarred Minnesota lawyer had made the stupendously stupid mistake of contacting reporter Stahl – thinking he would get a sympathetic story.
Nathan was with Sam the night of April 19, 2013, confirming what everyone had long suspected. Sam knew where her daughters, Samantha and Gianna, were.
They had called their mother on April 19, 2013.
Everyone had ignored the case for two years, but following Stahl’s story, Michael Brodkorb, who wrote a political blog for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, took a keen interest. He took up the father’;s side almost as if he were being paid to do so.
He would later write a book, start his own website on the case, and testified in 2020 that his job was to cover this case. He did not disclose who paid him from this job. But every story supported David.
By August 2015, an investigation heated up, and an arrest warrant was approved for Sam and somehow was leaked to Stahl.
The police claimed her sealed warrant got accidentally released due to a “computer glitch.”
In October 2015, Sam, working still as an airline attendant, finished a flight. She was in a timeshare in Florida when four US Marshals in SWAT gear burst down her door, put rifles to her head, and said, “Where are the guns; where are the girls?”
The US Marshals told her that Minnesota wanted her for kidnapping and gun running.
The gun running part wasn’t right. – that was just added to get the Marshall’s involved in something they otherwise would not pursue.
There was a warrant- the one leaked to Stahl- for parental deprivation- a crime carrying presumed probation but there were no guns and everyone knew it but the duped US Marshalls.
Sam was brought to Osceola County jail, where officials there were told she was an “assaultive felon,” put in maximum security, and shared a cell with Elizabeth Rios, who was charged with murder.
Sam spent about two and a half weeks there, then she was handcuffed, shackled, and thrown into a prison van and driven the long drive from Florida to Minnesota.
She arrived in Minnesota, and Judge Knutson ordered a $1 million cash bond.
Meanwhile, authorities found the girls on a ranch for abused children operated by Doug and Gina Dahlen in October 2015.
The Dahlen’s were charged. So was a woman named Dede Evavold who once worked with Gina, whose crime was that she recommended to Sam that the girls should go to the Dahlen’s ranch to hide from their abusive father.
Once captured, the teenage girls begged to be placed into foster care rather than return to their abusive father. The judge ignored their wishes. Parental alienation is indifferent to the suffering of children and is so parent-centric [and profit centric] that children’s lives will be destroyed so long as the paying parent has his wishes fulfilled.
Sam could not make bail and so she remained locked up for four months until she was released — only because the state of Minnesota was unprepared to start the trial.
The story caught the eye of 20/20 on ABC.
It may have started in one direction, but somehow, possibly because Sam was in prison and did not have access to important documents – it took a nasty anti-mother turn.
The broadcast aired in April 2016.
“You told us there was evidence of abuse,” host Elizabeth Vargas said to Sam as she was interviewed in prison.
“We could find none of it.”
The broadcast claimed to have gone through many boxes in attorney Michelle’s office, “finding no evidence of abuse.”
“As you know, Sandra Grazzini-Rucki specifically told us in our interview that she went to Lakeville PD several times during her marriage. She was specific about what she told them regarding the physical abuse she suffered. She also told us that she had photographs to corroborate her allegations of abuse. But neither she nor her attorney was able to produce these reports or photographs, and Lakeville PD had no records of any domestic violence reports from Sandra during her marriage.”
Sam had evidence, but from prison she did not have access and her attorney’s skill with the media lacked persuasiveness. On the other hand, David’s battery of paid players were attentive, diplomatic and eager – and David himself was the portrait of a victim – a poor dad falsely accused by a jailbird mother.
The tables were turned.
Judge Karen Asphaug
In September 2016, Judge Karen Asphaug presided over Sam’s, the Dahlen’s, and Dede’s criminal trials.
She granted motions in limine by the prosecution, forbidding any mention of David Rucki’s alleged violent history during the trial
Judge Asphuag barred Sam from even uttering the words “abuse” and “domestic violence” so as not to confuse the jury who were supposed to convict her.
One of the prospective jurors admitted he like David was kept away from his children by their mother, “like this woman is accused.”
Sam wanted him excluded but Judge Asphaug found nothing wrong with this. He wound up as the jury foreman.
Another juror said they knew David Rucki’s family, but despite Sam’s effort to exclude him, Judge Asphaug felt the person would make a fine juror.
Three journalists- Brodkorb, Stahl, and a reporter for the Lakeville newspaper- were eager for a good story, and they did something novel. They approached the jury for interviews during the trial.
In most courts, in most free lands, where due process is known, this would be grounds for censure of the individuals, and if the jurors interviewed with them – it would be automatic grounds for a mistrial.
Jusge Asphuag did not feel the need for due process and let it go.
Young Samantha told a cop that her aunt and father were pressuring her to recant a month before the trial – a clear case of witness tampering. But Judge Asphaug never believed the children.
The jury convicted Sam.
Judge Asphaug sentenced Sam to a year and a day.
The conviction was eventually overturned, but the appeals court ignored allegations of jury tampering, witness tampering, and judicial bias.
By that time, Sam was broke, and not permitted to see her children, she moved out of lawless Minnesota as a convicted felon.
In 2021, the State of Florida opened a case against her for back-due child support for her kids, all over eighteen by then.
to compete the picture, – in October 2022, Dan Abrams picked up the story for his A & E show, Court Cam. He described the incident where attorney Michelle was forced to conduct part of the trial, handcuffed to a wheelchair, blaming Michelle for the incident.
In the 20/20 episode, David, the kindly father-victim, claimed he would reunite the family.
Elizabeth Vargas from ABC’s “20/20” interviewing Sam Grazzini-Rucki
Shedding something that looked very nearly like crocodilian tears, David emotionally said,, “the children need a mother.”
It never happened. David got the company. He got the children.
Sam hasn’t seen her children for 10 years. And while she was accused of alienating the children from David, he successfully alienated them from her.
She lives away, secluded, unseen and unknown – a felon – not in contact with her children.
A smashed up mother.
Just another victory for parental alienation.
