Edward Andrew “Coach” Weinhaus

Edward Andrew “Coach” Weinhaus

Edward “Coach” Weinhaus
Other names	Coach Weinhaus
Disciplinary and criminal matters	Illinois ARDC disciplinary complaint; Maryland criminal case
Other court records	Highland Park High School football-game removal lawsuit; Seventh Circuit sanctions; Scannicchio litigation; Romanek litigation; Children of the Court / Judiciocracy v. ARDC; UCLA appointment litigation
Connected entities and outlets	Judiciocracy; ALABnews; Children of the Court; LegalSolved; Control New MLSS; Prairie State Wire; BlockShopper; Journatic; LocalLabs

Edward Andrew Weinhaus, also known as Edward “Coach” Weinhaus, is the respondent in Illinois attorney-disciplinary charges that he knowingly made false statements, or statements with reckless disregard for truth or falsity, about Judges Thaddeus Wilson and Regina Scannicchio and engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.^[1] Weinhaus was removed from a Highland Park High School football game after a female student accused him of being “creepy” and following her; school security became involved, three Highland Park police officers were called, and Weinhaus was told to leave or face arrest for trespassing. His federal lawsuit over that removal was dismissed with prejudice.^[13] He has also been criminally charged in Maryland with electronic communication harassment and harassment/course of conduct.^[14]

The court record includes a Seventh Circuit sanctions order, a failed federal lawsuit against Judge Regina Scannicchio and the Illinois Judges Association, a denied Supreme Court petition, a federal action involving Judge Abby Romanek, and a failed federal lawsuit by Children of the Court and Judiciocracy against Illinois attorney-disciplinary officials.^{[6][8][9][10][16]}

The same record connects Weinhaus to judge-focused and attorney-discipline websites and public-record publishing entities, including Judiciocracy, ALABnews, LegalSolved, Control New MLSS, and Children of the Court.^[1][2] His publishing history is connected to the Brian Timpone / Metric Media / LGIS Pink Slime ecosystem, including Prairie State Wire, BlockShopper, Journatic, and LocalLabs.^[3][4]

Illinois attorney-disciplinary complaint

In 2025, the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission filed disciplinary charges against Weinhaus in In re Edward Andrew Weinhaus, Matter No. 2025PR00026.^[1]

The complaint charges a single count titled “Knowingly Making False Statements with Reckless Disregard as to Their Truth or Falsity Concerning the Qualifications or Integrity of Judges Thaddeus Wilson and Regina Scannicchio.” It charges violations of Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct 8.2(a) and 8.4(c).^[1]

The ARDC complaint states that Weinhaus created and served as registered agent for Missouri entities including LegalSolved, Control New MLSS, and Judiciocracy. It states that Judiciocracy consisted of publications including ALABnews, that Weinhaus served as Judiciocracy’s Chief Executive Officer, and that he reviewed all ALABnews content before publication.^[1]

The complaint charges that Weinhaus caused Judge Thaddeus Wilson’s picture to be placed on a Children of the Court “Team” page with the title “Nationwide Enforcer” and language stating that Judge Wilson’s order created a national organization and made him responsible for enforcing Children of the Court funding. The complaint charges that those statements were false because Judge Wilson was not on the organization’s team, did not create Children of the Court, had no ongoing responsibility over its funding or operation, and had no authority to direct Judge Scannicchio’s assignments.^[1]

The complaint also charges that an ALABnews article falsely stated that Judge Wilson “immediately ordered an organization be started” to keep Judge Scannicchio away from cases involving children. The ARDC complaint charges that Judge Wilson did not start Children of the Court, did not direct it to act against Judge Scannicchio, was not involved in a “slam” against her, and had no authority over the assignment of cases to Judge Scannicchio in the Domestic Relations Division.^[1]

The complaint charges misconduct under Rule 8.2(a) for false or reckless statements concerning judges and under Rule 8.4(c) for conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.^[1] Weinhaus denies the disciplinary charges. His answer admits that he is CEO of Judiciocracy but denies that he reviewed all ALABnews content before publication, denies that the challenged statements were false, and asserts First Amendment defenses.^[2]

Highland Park High School football-game removal and dismissal

In 2025, Weinhaus, Children of the Court, and Judiciocracy sued Township High School District 113, the City of Highland Park, school officials, and police officials in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The case arose from Weinhaus’ removal from a Highland Park High School Homecoming football game.^[13]

Weinhaus bought a $6 ticket to the October 2025 Homecoming game and attended individually and as a representative of Children of the Court and Judiciocracy. His children also attended, but Weinhaus did not sit with them when he arrived. During the second quarter, a female student accused Weinhaus of being “creepy” and reported him to Dean of Students Don McCord. McCord asked Weinhaus to leave; Weinhaus refused; McCord then told him not to sit in the stands, and Weinhaus complied. The student continued making complaints to security.^[13]

By the third quarter, much of the crowd had left, including Weinhaus’ children. McCord returned with Head of Security Lane Linder and three Highland Park police officers. McCord demanded that Weinhaus leave the game or be arrested for trespassing. McCord stated that Weinhaus’ children had left and that a female student was uncomfortable because Weinhaus was “following her.” Weinhaus said he was trying to say hello to his children. McCord escorted him out and told him he could return to future HPHS events.^[13]

The court dismissed the First Amendment claims. Children of the Court and Judiciocracy had not pleaded their own protected First Amendment activity. Weinhaus’ asserted injury was too minimal to deter a person of ordinary firmness because he was escorted out after his children had already left and was told he could return to future school events.^[13]

The court dismissed the due-process claims because members of the public do not have a constitutional right to access school property, and the temporary inability to sit with his children during part of the game was not severe enough to violate substantive due process. The court also dismissed the Monell and deliberate-indifference theories because there was no underlying constitutional violation. The amended complaint was the plaintiffs’ second attempt to respond to dismissal motions and still failed to state a claim, so the case was dismissed with prejudice.^[13]

Maryland criminal case

A Maryland criminal case against Weinhaus is proceeding in the District Court for Montgomery County under Case No. D-06-CR-26-005694. The matter concerns the same harassment-related charges initially docketed under Case No. D-06-CR-26-004636.^[14]

The original Maryland docket listed two criminal charges: electronic communication harassment under Maryland Criminal Law § 3-805(b)(1), and harassment/course of conduct under Maryland Criminal Law § 3-803. The docket identified probable cause for both charges.^[14]

Lawsuits against judges and judicial institutions

Weinhaus’ court record includes repeated attempts to move disputes involving family court, judicial discipline, state institutions, and school officials into federal civil-rights or constitutional litigation. The adverse rulings used jurisdiction, standing, abstention, immunity, Rule 12 pleading standards, and Rule 38 sanctions.

Domestic-relations appeal and Seventh Circuit sanctions

In 2019, Weinhaus challenged dismissal of a federal suit he filed against a former spouse, members of her family, and the State of Illinois. The suit attacked provisions of a state-court custody judgment requiring him to exercise parenting time outside Illinois.^[7]

The Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal and decided the case without oral argument because the appeal was frivolous and oral argument would not significantly aid the court. The court held that the domestic-relations exception and the Rooker-Feldman doctrine barred the suit. It rejected his claimed “end-runs” around the domestic-relations exception and held that his alleged injury came from the state-court custody judgment itself.^[7]

The Seventh Circuit granted the appellees’ sanctions motion. In a later order, the court stated that Weinhaus’ appeal satisfied the Rule 38 sanctions standard. It awarded no additional federal appellate fees because a state-court order had already required him to pay $23,500 in attorney’s fees and because Weinhaus represented that he would waive any appeal of that state fee award. The Seventh Circuit directed the clerk to forward the July and September 2019 orders to the State Bar of California.^[8]

Lawsuit against Judge Regina Scannicchio and the Illinois Judges Association

Weinhaus later sued Judge Regina Scannicchio and the Illinois Judges Association after Judge Scannicchio entered an order requiring him to pay $25,000 in attorney’s fees and costs to a former spouse based on his litigiousness during divorce proceedings.^[9]

The federal complaint invoked 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and asserted due-process and equal-protection violations. Weinhaus claimed that Judge Scannicchio conspired with judges in the Illinois Judges Association to cause dismissal of his state-court appeal. The district court dismissed the case under Rooker-Feldman and gave him a chance to amend. The amended complaint still failed.^[9]

The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The court held that the amended complaint failed to state a claim because it broadly asserted conspiracy and interference but did not support those claims with factual conduct within Weinhaus’ personal knowledge. The court held that conclusory labels were insufficient and that the complaint contained no factual allegations supporting a reasonable inference that the defendants caused the state appellate dismissal.^[9]

Weinhaus then filed a Supreme Court petition for a writ of certiorari. The petition was docketed as No. 25-725, identified the Seventh Circuit case number as 24-2473, and was denied on February 23, 2026.^[10]

Children of the Court and Judiciocracy v. ARDC

After the ARDC announced disciplinary charges against Weinhaus, Children of the Court and Judiciocracy sued the ARDC, Administrator Lea S. Gutierrez, and Senior Legal Counsel Tammy Evans in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.^[6]

The complaint used entity plaintiffs rather than Weinhaus as the named plaintiff. Judge April M. Perry described Children of the Court as a Missouri nonprofit founded in 2023 by UCLA students and their professor, Illinois lawyer Edward Weinhaus. The court described Judiciocracy as a Missouri limited-liability company responsible for publications including AbusiveDiscretion and ALABnews, and stated that Weinhaus formed Judiciocracy in 2023 and remained its CEO.^[6]

The court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. The plaintiff entities lacked Article III standing because the protected interests at issue belonged to Weinhaus, not to the entities. The ARDC had not directly regulated the entities’ speech and had no power over non-lawyer entities. The asserted injury came from Weinhaus’ own decision to stop doing certain work for the entities, not from an ARDC directive to those entities.^[6]

The court also held that abstention would apply even if standing existed. Attorney discipline is traditionally reserved to the states, and the requested federal relief would interfere with Illinois’ attorney-disciplinary system. The court rejected the bad-faith theory as conclusory and unsupported by factual content. Any amended complaint was permitted only if counsel could file it consistently with the opinion and Rule 11 obligations.^[6]

Children of the Court litigation involving Judge Abby Romanek

A separate federal action involved Judge Abby Romanek, Cook County officials, Children of the Court, and a minor’s attempted attendance at a domestic-relations Zoom hearing. Children of the Court communicated with Judge Romanek’s chambers before the hearing. Judge Romanek refused to admit the minor to the proceeding. Later communications stated that Children of the Court and the minor would attend court in person.^[16]

The resulting federal civil-rights action was dismissed with prejudice. The court recognized the authority of a state judge to control the courtroom, manage the docket, and protect minors from exposure to contentious domestic-relations proceedings.^[16]

The Romanek episode fits the same litigation structure as the ARDC case and the Highland Park case: Weinhaus-linked entities or activity produced a confrontation with an institution; the confrontation was recast as a constitutional injury; the federal case failed.^[13][16]

Court of Claims litigation

Weinhaus v. Illinois Court of Claims, 2024 IL App (4th) 230343-U, was another proceeding in which Weinhaus challenged a state body and lost on appeal. The appellate court affirmed the judgment after holding that the Court of Claims proceedings satisfied due process because Weinhaus had been allowed to respond to summary-judgment motions with legal memoranda, citations, and analysis.^[16]

End of UCLA Anderson appointment and lawsuit

UCLA Anderson School of Management identified Weinhaus as a lecturer who joined UCLA Anderson in the summer of 2016. In litigation against the Regents of the University of California, Weinhaus stated that he worked as a UCLA lecturer from August 1, 2016 through December 31, 2022, and that UCLA Anderson’s decision not to appoint him as a Continuing Lecturer ended his UCLA employment.^[11][12]

The case arose from UCLA Anderson’s decision not to appoint him as a Continuing Lecturer. Weinhaus stated that UCLA conducted an excellence review in 2022 to determine whether he would receive a Continuing Lecturer appointment; that a three-person ad hoc committee recommended the appointment by a 3-0 vote; that a later faculty review committee voted against the appointment; and that Dean Tony Bernardo issued a final decision in February 2023 declining to appoint him.^[12]

Judge John F. Walter granted the Regents’ motion to dismiss in part. The court dismissed Weinhaus’ misrepresentation and fraudulent-inducement claims without leave to amend, holding that California Government Code § 818.8 immunizes public entities from liability for employee misrepresentations, whether negligent or intentional. The court rejected Weinhaus’ argument that the statutory immunity did not apply because the dispute did not involve a commercial transaction.^[12]

Publishing and fringe-site network

Judiciocracy and ALABnews

The ARDC complaint describes Judiciocracy as a media company consisting of publications including ALABnews. It charges that Weinhaus served as Judiciocracy’s CEO and reviewed all ALABnews content before publication.^[1]

Weinhaus’ answer admits that he is CEO of Judiciocracy but denies that he reviewed all content published by ALABnews.^[2]

The ARDC complaint places the Judiciocracy / ALABnews network at the center of the disciplinary case: one challenged item was a Children of the Court webpage placing Judge Wilson on the organization’s “Team” page; the other was an ALABnews article tying Judge Wilson to an asserted effort to keep Judge Scannicchio away from cases involving children. The ARDC charges both sets of statements as false or reckless and as conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.^[1]

ALABseries litigation and ALABnews

In 2022, Weinhaus filed an Eastern District of Missouri action against ALABseries.com and others, Case No. 4:22-cv-00115, followed by a stipulated dismissal with prejudice and a later denied motion to enforce the settlement.^[16]

ALAB Series later published Episode 27, titled “COACH!”, describing the episode as involving Edward “Coach” Weinhaus.^[15] After that dispute, Weinhaus’ publishing activity included ALABnews, a Judiciocracy-linked outlet that became part of the Illinois disciplinary complaint over judge-focused falsehood charges.^[1]

Pink Slime ecosystem

In a Columbia Journalism Review article about public-record publishing networks, Weinhaus was named as a lawyer for Metric and a cofounder of BlockShopper and Journatic, later known as LocalLabs. Discussing public records, he stated: “If it’s public, it’s yours.”^[3]

Columbia Journalism Review reported that Journatic became the subject of journalism-ethics controversy after This American Life aired a segment concerning fake bylines, outsourced local-work, and aliases used in content connected to Journatic and BlockShopper.^[5]

Prairie State Wire is part of the same local-site ecosystem. Its contact page lists an “LGIS Network” of Illinois-branded publications, and Columbia Journalism Review described Prairie State Wire as a Metric paper.^[3][4]

Associated entities

Selected proceedings

References

1. Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, Complaint, In re Edward Andrew Weinhaus, Matter No. 2025PR00026.
2. Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, Answer, In re Edward Andrew Weinhaus, Matter No. 2025PR00026.
3. Columbia Journalism Review, “How ‘Pink Slime’ Publishers Are Weaponizing FOIA.”
4. Prairie State Wire contact page listing the LGIS Network of Illinois-branded publications.
5. Columbia Journalism Review article concerning Journatic and fake-bylines controversy.
6. Children of the Court and Judiciocracy v. ARDC, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, dismissal order, Case No. 1:25-cv-03387.
7. United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, domestic-relations appeal, No. 18-3185, order dated July 16, 2019.
8. United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, domestic-relations appeal, No. 18-3185, sanctions order dated September 23, 2019.
9. Edward Weinhaus v. Regina Scannicchio, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, No. 24-2473, order dated June 18, 2025.
10. Supreme Court docket, Edward Weinhaus v. Regina A. Scannicchio, Judge, Circuit Court of Illinois, Cook County, et al., No. 25-725.
11. UCLA Anderson School of Management, faculty profile for Edward “Coach” Weinhaus.
12. Edward “Coach” Weinhaus v. Regents of the University of California, United States District Court for the Central District of California, Case No. 2:25-cv-00262, order dated June 20, 2025.
13. Weinhaus v. Board of Education of Township High School District 113 et al., United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Case No. 1:25-cv-14662, memorandum opinion and order dated June 25, 2026.
14. Maryland criminal docket, State of Maryland v. Edward Andrew Weinhaus, originally docketed as Case No. D-06-CR-26-004636; later proceeding under Case No. D-06-CR-26-005694.
15. ALAB Series, Episode 27: “COACH!”
16. Edward Weinhaus litigation profile, Deep Research report, June 25, 2026.