S.C. Family Court and Lawyers Retaliate Against Outspoken Journalist

This is a story of Dion McNeil, 34, of Columbia, South Carolina. He started The Daily Counter and while no longer owns this publication his story needs to be told. This involves a Family Court fudging documents, a lawyer appearing to commit fraud upon the court, a person alienating this man from his child, and a little boy caught in the middle. Dion McNeil has been allegedly assaulted by his wife who has been given an unquestionable amount of undue deference by the Family Courts. The best part about this story is that we have proof.

Domestic Violence Incident

On January 12, 2019, at around 6:30 AM Dion woke up in his home thinking that the day would be like any other day. He was wrong. Dion and his wife, Kyana McNeil, 32, got into a verbal altercation. This is stemming from beliefs Dion had about his wife cheating on him.

He admits to grabbing her phone from a spare bedroom to look through it. Several days before this incident, multiple neighbors informed Dion that his wife was cheating on him. This would be claimed by other neighbors and The Daily Counter has obtained a sworn statement from a neighbor that appears to justify Mr. McNeil’s suspicions. When he grabbed the phone Kyana became visually upset and chased him into the couple’s bedroom.

It was in the couple’s bedroom where it appears Kyana McNeil struck Dion McNeil. Dion called the Richland County Sheriff’s Department. On the incident report, Kyana McNeil is listed as the suspect based on a cell phone video Dion McNeil got of Kyana appearing to strike him.

Here is a copy of that incident report:

Here is the video showing the alleged physical assault. Keep in mind that this assault happened in front of the couple’s then-2-year-old son.

Dion says that before the police showed up Kyana shouted, “you will never see your son again.” The last time Dion saw his son Langston was May 11, 2019. It would appear that Kyana kept her promise.The reason why he believed this was the case was that his neighbors told him that they saw Kyana out with other men and that Kyana was rarely home. Richland County Deputies arrived at Dion McNeil’s home in Columbia. One of the Deputies, Deputy Ben Bolden, was placing Kyana McNeil into handcuffs. Dion stated that he didn’t want Kyana arrested because he is an avid supporter of the 2nd Amendment and if convicted Kyana would lose her gun rights. Even though, based on the police report and a 3rd party witness to the video, that Kyana appeared to be a domestic abuser based on 3rd party statements (police report) Dion appeared to show compassion.

“I didn’t want the mother of my child to go to jail. I worked in correctional facilities before. I didn’t want that for her no matter how bad of a person she is. Plus, in this state, gun rights being restored after a domestic violence conviction can be hard. Do I think she’s horrible? Sure. But do I want her to not be able to defend herself? No. I couldn’t live with myself,” Dion stated.

The First Family Court Case

Records show that Dion was alienated from his son for about 2 weeks until he was served with court papers. To his shock, Kyana McNeil was claiming that Dion McNeil physically assaulted her even though there was no video, no physical injuries, and no police report backing up the statement. On January 24, 2019, Dion and Kyana went before South Carolina Family Court Judge Dana Morris.

There were no physical injuries and if they were those injuries were never listed in the 21 court documents we’ve obtained. She claimed Dion punched her in the chest three times and laughed about it which sounds almost psychotic. She also claimed this when the records show she never called the police (like Dion did), never went to a hospital and showed any physical injuries, and if she were so serious about the assault, why agree to visitation with the man who behaved like a comic book villain?

How can a man who is over 6 feet tall, a combat veteran, a trained martial artist, and someone who appears to be as physically athletic and as strong as Dion McNeil can punch someone in the chest 3 times but there be no physical injuries?

Before the hearing, Kyana’s attorney, Blakely Copeland Cahoon, convinced Dion into believing that CBD was federally illegal. That wasn’t the case. She talked Dion into relinquishing primary custody even though Dion was a stay-at-home father.

Judge Dana Morris, according to Dion, looked confused during the hearing. Dion says he remembers Judge Morris stating, “I thought this was an order of protection hearing but I’m hearing about custody.” The whole case was about child custody, Dion received a court-ordered visitation document giving him standard visitation, from January 24th to May 11th for every other weekend.

If you look at the picture to the left you’ll see a sworn statement from Dion’s neighbor Franklin Green, 52, stating that Kyana was gone so much that he wasn’t even aware the couple were married. Frank Green believed that Kyana was Dion’s friend with benefits or, as quoted from the sworn statement, “maybe someone that Dion was just messing around with.”

Why would a neighbor say this? What benefit would Frank Green possibly have for saying something like this if it were not true? How many other neighbors have noticed this and just didn’t say anything until now?

Dion McNeil’s other next-door neighbor, Kay Feagan, stated that it was Dion who was with the couple’s 4-year-old son Langston almost all of the time. Feagan stated that she noticed Kyana away from the home often and it had nothing to do with Kyana’s work as these absent days were on weekends.

This means that neighbors to the left and right side of Dion’s house have both stated that it was Dion who took care of the couple’s son with Kyana being gone so often that, as Frank Green said, “she might as well not be here at all if he had to the do all the child-rearing and now he hasn’t seen his son in so long. It’s pitiful. You get women saying all the time that men aren’t good dads but here you have one who hasn’t missed a single child support payment, no arrests, and all he wants to do is be involved in his son’s life.”

Visitation was scheduled by Judge Morris from January 24, 2019, until May 11, 2019. Judge Morris specifically ordered that the couple were not to engage in any adverse contact. Yet, it appears that Kyana ignored that order and decided to accuse Dion of cursing out a daycare worker when that never appears to have happened. We spoke with the daycare worker in question. She had only spoken with Dion three times and none of those times involved a single profane word. Dion presented a phone recording from February 23, 2019 featuring a conversation between himself and Kyana. There was a discussion about their son’s daycare arrangements. This is when Kyana began what appears to be adverse contact by seemingly instigating an argument that didn’t need to occur.

Dion mentioned this in a later court date and tried to present a recording but the judge in that later case refused to hear this evidence.

Have a listen to the recording. Start at around the 7-minute mark:

Audio

Served with Court Papers on Memorial Day, Dirty Tactics

Dion McNeil has his child support amount set at $896 monthly for one child. That amount is absurd because child support is supposed to support the child and not the mother. What child on planet Earth has two parents but one has to give up so much of their money to the point where they have to visit Dorn VA Medical Center’s food pantry?

During a later court hearing, Dion McNeil and his attorney went up against Kyana McNeil and her attorney, Blakely Copeland Cahoon. By this time, Dion was already served on May 27, 2019 which was Memorial Day by Cahoon. We have obtained a copy of the proof of service by Sharp Investigations who didn’t appear to care that this man was a combat veteran being served on a day reserved for veterans. We have reasons to believe this was done intentionally and we will show just cause for this inference in this article.

Sharp Investigations claim that they visited Dion’s home on May 23, 2019, at 5:35 PM and again on May 24, 2019, at 12:27 PM. The problem with these claims is that two witnesses who lived with Dion have stated this is not accurate.

Jason Phillips, 29, served with Dion in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He says that during May 2019 he lived with Dion and witnessed a process server only appearing on May 27, 2019. “I was there. I know what I saw. I even came with Dion to the first hearing with Judge Morris. I saw the retaliation and the targeting of him because he is a father. I’m gay. I don’t have a dog in this fight but I’m willing to say that nothing about Dion’s case is reasonable,” Jason Phillips stated. Phillips’ husband, Jordan Engle, 25, was also present and stated nobody came to the house on either on those days. What’s even stranger was that May 26th was open so why didn’t Sharp Investigations serve this paperwork on that day? Why wait for a day reserved for veterans if it wasn’t intentional?

What makes this situation worse is that Blakely Copeland-Cahoon is pretending to support veterans.

Below is what Copeland-Cahoon posted on Memorial Day 2018:

If you were an attorney and you knew you had someone who is a combat veteran served on Memorial Day and you post pictures like the one above then why wouldn’t you apologize to that veteran?

“I don’t want her apology. Anyone who does this to any veteran doesn’t deserve to even be looked upon with respect,” Dion said.

How far does Dion believe Kyana and her legal council would go to get under his skin?

According to Judge Morris’ order, after January 24, 2019, Kyana was not supposed to come back to Dion’s home. Let’s take another look at the sworn statement from Dion’s neighbor Frank Green. Click here to get a full copy of the statement.

According to the sworn statement, Frank Green is claiming that he saw Kyana and a tall white man show up to Dion’s house on January 23, 2019. That is fine and doesn’t violate a court order because Judge Morris’ order had an effective date of January 24, 2019 which was a day later. However, Frank Green is also claiming that on Friday, January 25, 2019, he witnessed Kyana arriving at Dion’s home, getting out of a black Dodge Charger, and entering the home. Green also said that that he saw Dion visibly upset.

According to Dion, when he came into his home on Friday January 25, 2019, at first he and his friend Jason Phillips believed the home had been burglarized. The front door was wide open. Dion grabbed his firearm and cleared each room in the house. While clearing the rooms he noticed that the placed had been left an absolute mess.

Jason Phillips stated, “I honestly thought someone had broken in. He was with me the entire time and he stayed at my place because he was afraid Kyana would show back up to start stuff.”

Here are some pictures:

Dion and Jason instantly suspected Kyana. On the following day, their speculations were confirmed during a recorded phone call between Dion and Kyana. Dion went to the Department of Veterans Affairs for a Saturday appointment on January 26, 2019. He had Langston at that time as visitation was ordered from February 24, 2019 until May 11, 2019.

We’ve obtained a copy of that recorded phone call. If you listen you can hear Langston in the background. At the 7:30 mark you can hear Kyana say, “I didn’t mean to leave that place the way it was.” What did she mean by that? What other condition would you leave a place other than the way you found it? Why would you leave a place a mess unless to do it intentionally?

Dion said he kept his cool because his son was around and there was a VA nurse present who was working on getting him some pain medications. If it wasn’t Kyana who destroyed this man’s home then why would she be telling him about this on the Saturday after Dion claimed she destroyed his place? Why wouldn’t she tell him about how she “didn’t mean to leave that place the way it was” on Friday?

In the recording, you can also hear Kyana bringing up numerous subjects other than the general care and custody of Langston. Judge Morris’ order specifically dictates that contact between the couple should only occur for the general care of Langston and nothing more. Why then can Kyana be heard mentioning utility bills? Wouldn’t that be a violation of Judge Morris’ order?

Here is a copy of that phone recording:

Audio

You may have noticed a blue suit in the picture gallery above. Dion says that was his favorite suit because it was a gift from his mother.

“Mama got me that. This was before she came down with dementia where she can’t even remember my name. That’s why it was special to me. She (Kyana) knew it was special to me. When you look at the crime you realize it was a crime of passion. You’d only do something like this to hurt someone. That suit cost over $500. It was a navy blue Sean Jean suit and when mama got it for me I was very overweight. She brought it a size too small because she knew I wanted to wear it and if I did wanna wear it I’d have to lose weight. I lost the weight but the suit is now ruined because she is toothpaste all over it,” Dion said.

Dion says that it isn’t the suit being ruined that bothered him. It was more the fact that it was then that he noticed dirty tactics would be used. He didn’t expect civility after that. Instead, he expected Kyana to be mean, nasty, and to use Langston as a weapon.

“She knew that the reason why I had been walking, working out, and trying to lose weight was so I could fit into the suit. I was using that as my motivation. My mother rarely did nice things for me and I expected child abuse from her. I was neglected, abused, molested, you name it. That suit meant the world to me because that was my mom trying to help me instead of hurting me,” Dion explained.

“Why? Why do this?” he asked.

Judge Monet Pincus

According to Dion and phone records, Kyana had him blocked from the daycare. There doesn’t appear to be a reason as there were no allegations of child abuse, no S.C. DSS (Department of Social Services) child abuse reports or arrests. It appears to have come out of the blue. On May 12, 2019, a day after the temporary visitation order ended, Dion tried to go to The Sunshine House on Garners Ferry Road in Columbia, South Carolina. A daycare worker informed Dion that he wasn’t allowed to see Langston even though at that time there was no court order prohibiting him from doing so.

In April 2019, Dion ended up in court again. This time, the opposing counsel hurled accusations ranging from child abuse, spousal abuse, cannabis use, and all sorts of other allegations. Numerous times Dion asked for evidence to corroborate these allegations but was never presented that evidence in court.

According to Dion, Judge Pincus told him to be quiet when he was trying to present evidence that criminalized Kyana and that he wasn’t to defend himself from any allegation. Judge Pincus ordered Dion to take a urinalysis and a 10-Panel hair follicle test due to the allegation made by Kyana and her legal counsel. Dion was ordered to pay for these tests out of pocket. Judge Pincus also set Dion’s child support to $896 monthly. How was this man supposed to afford all of this and afford to live off of VA compensation alone?

He says he was already aware of Pincus due to a State Newspaper article by John Monk featuring the story of Matthew Younginer. Dion realized it wasn’t common to find publications covering family court stories and especially when the judge appears to be in the wrong and the case gets vacated. Dion says that even though he suspected Pincus wasn’t a good judge he tried to give her a chance without requesting a new judge.

Dion decided to conduct a criminal background and internet deep search on Monet Pincus. He found out that Monet Pincus was arrested for marijuana possession back in 1986 which was the same year Dion McNeil was born.

Here is proof of Pincus admitting to this in her South Carolina Judicial Merit Selection Committee screening:

Read More About Monet Pincus: Click Here

“That’s hypocritical. I’ve never been arrested for anything and especially not drug-related. Now that I’m a journalist a lot of people tell me stories about these drug tests that get ordered based on no evidence. Pincus is from Berkeley, California, and got caught with weed. If someone told you that a person from California was caught with weed you wouldn’t even question it. You’d just assume it happened,” Dion said.

Dion has submitted several clean drug tests including a 10-Panel hair follicle test he was ordered to take more than once. Again, this man has no arrests to his record and a clean criminal history yet is ordered to pay hundreds of dollars for drug tests based on mere accusations. Dion has presented 5 drug tests including the results of a 10-panel hair follicle test that tests back to 90 days of the testing date. He has come back negative for any illegal drug. Dion has admitted to smoking cigarettes and taking CBD gummies but neither activity is illegal.

Kyana claimed to have witnessed Dion smoking cannabis. Dion says he smoked CBD and would travel to go get some. He felt that the CBD helped him with anxiety and sleep. Many people would look at CBD and cannabis fruit and would have a difficult time telling the difference between the two. Dion believes Kyana has engaged in a case of mistaken identity and says he has explained to her several times that the substance he took was CBD.

According to court documents, Blakely Copeland-Cahoon claimed that Dion McNeil was a habitual user of cannabis and that he was “self-medicating.” The problem with this claim is that based on all available evidence it is false.

Here is the proof that Dion passed a 10-Panel hair follicle test:

Retaliation from the Bench, Judge Rosalyn Frierson-Smith

In December 2019, Dion sent a letter to the South Carolina Office of Judicial Conduct. This letter was a complaint against Richland County Family Court Judge Rosalyn Frierson-Smith. Dion has provided more than enough evidence for us to comfortably say this judge attempted to retaliate against Dion McNeil for public criticism of the South Carolina judicial system.

Let’s provide some context.

By this time, Dion met and spoke with Matthew Younginer and Nathan Ginter who both had issues with Judge Monet Pincus. Dion was then warned about several other judges across the state of South Carolina. He says he went to read a few news articles and began conducting criminal background searches as well as social media searches. What Dion found is displayed in his writing across The Daily Counter.

He found:

• Some people such as Linwood Edwards, II had felonies on their record but was allowed to be a judge
• Some were arrested for weed but will have litigants drug tested for weed without evidence (Monet Pincus)
• DUI judge (Bradley Mayers)
• Several judges cheating on their spouses (he says he will be releasing those articles soon)
• Legislators who happen to be attorneys in vacation photographs with judges which several violates judicial canons
• A former judge such as Arther Brynelson who somehow became a judge even though he was a construction worker/carpenter with no legal experience to speak of

Dion ran across another name. That name was Rosalyn Frierson-Smith. He joined a Facebook group known as South Carolina Father’s Rights. In July 2019, Several members of that group informed him of Clint Doran. Dion learned that Clint Doran was the leader of the S.C. Father’s Rights group. Judge Rosalyn Frierson-Smith hit Clint Doran with so many legal fees that he couldn’t pay them all and thus had a bench warrant issued for his arrest for missing a child support payment. Doran spent 6 months in the Kershaw County Detention Center for missing child support payments.

Dion also read about Judge Pincus’ role in the case and realized how ridiculous the ruling was based on the evidence. It was claimed Doran was an abuser but the criminal charges against him were dropped due to lack of evidence. Pincus wrote into the final order concerning Clint Doran that he was somehow a child abuser for letting his son ride a riding lawnmower.

On September 8, 2019, Dion uploaded a YouTube video to his Devil’s Advocate channel. The video was titled, “South Carolina Judicial Corruption.”

In that video, Dion specifically mentioned Judge Rosalyn Frierson-Smith and Clint Doran. Frierson-Smith was involved in the Clint Doran case. Dion would have had to mention Clint Doran because he read out David Hucks’ take on the situation from MyrtleBeachSC news. Hucks specifically titled a section of the article Judge Rosalyn Frierson-Smith. Dion also posted a link to Hucks’ article about the situation.

Read more about David Hucks’ coverage on Clint Doran: Click Here

In October 2019, Charleston’s Post and Courier also covered the Clint Doran situation and specifically mentioned Judge Rosalyn Frierson-Smith. Read more about Post & Courier’s coverage on Clint Doran: Click Here

The reason why all of this is important is that Dion admitted to posting the video that would have gotten his wife arrested. He says that the reason why he did so was to try to force her to let him see his child who he was still paying child support for. This was a violation of the order Judge Pincus gave which prohibited Dion from posting about the situation on social media. Dion received notice of an emergency hearing a few days later.

Dion arrived to the emergency hearing and noticed that Judge Rosalyn Frierson-Smith was presiding over the hearing. Dion spoke with several court officers who then told Judge Frierson-Smith who appears to not have cared. The hearing went on anyways. Judge Frierson-Smith had to have known that Dion McNeil criticized her and that he was supporting Clint Doran. The video that Dion posted that would have gotten Kyana McNeil arrested was posted after the “South Carolina Judicial Corruption” video. All Judge Frierson-Smith would have had to do is go to Dion’s YouTube channel and view the video.

Here is a screenshot of Dion specifically mentioning Judge Frierson-Smith and Judge Pincus in the video’s description:

Why would Judge Frierson-Smith continue that hearing if Dion mentioned that he just publicly criticized her? Is there any way that hearing was fair?

Dion was fined $982 even though his child support is set to $896 a month. Judge Frierson-Smith also ordered Dion and Kyana to both pay an additional $500 for a guardian-ad-litem. That means that Kyana was already receiving child support payments from Dion but she wasn’t expected to pay even half of what he had to pay even though, based on several financial disclosures, they roughly make the same amount of money. During the month of October 2019, Dion had to visit the Dorn VA Medical Center’s food pantry to find food. A combat veteran was reduced to begging for food because of an order issued by a judge in a case she clearly shouldn’t have heard. It’s almost as if Judge Frierson-Smith was intentionally picked to preside over this case.

What are the odds that Dion would get this specific judge when he specifically criticized that same judge just a month prior?

Do you believe Dion McNeil was heard by this judge on accident?