The police cleared him that same night. The accusation outlived their report by seven years.
In the fall of 2019, Jon Goodwin moved in with a woman he'd known for 25 years — and into the orbit of her ex-husband. Within weeks, the complaint alleges, an accusation was assembled the way evidence never is: a staged altercation, a camera already rolling, a video carried past the officers who found no crime and delivered instead to a school, a caseworker, a file.
The word abuse did the rest. No charge was ever brought. The accusation never needed one.
So Goodwin sued. Five years and 244 docket entries later, he stands alone — pro se — against more than the man who started it. Subpoenas quashed. A sealed file, a closed courtroom. Claims pared away, evidence kept out — rulings Goodwin contends are no accident, but a court protecting its own: the lawyers, the court social workers, the Department of Children and Families and judges in related cases. He has asked Judge Ann E. Lynch, on the record, to disclose and to answer whether she should sit at all. Lynch refused.
On September 15, 2026, six Litchfield jurors finally get the record.
Goodwin v. Milot. The verdict is his to seek.
Cumulative Error. A by Jon Goodwin. Coming October 1, 2026.