Another "unusual' Situation...

One thing I want to say at the onset of writing this, is that this situation is not unusual at all. What's unusual is that the public is hearing about this happening, that's all. Mother are forced all the time to send their kids into prisons or other dangerous places to visit these so-called 'fathers'. Many of these men, btw, nothing more then recreational sperm donors who decide they want to claim the title of father once they are in jail, as it allows them access to more privileges and attention.

Even when they get paroled (and many of them won't hesitate to use the fact that they are 'fathers' to get early release), if they manage to wrestle custody of these kids from their mothers, it's estimated they can claim up to $10,000 in benefits from the state. From food stamps to subsidized rents it's all dependent upon custody of a child.

AND I can understand exactly why this woman didn't return to court as she probably would have been subject to more vicious verbal and emotional abuse from this Judge, who was the one who forced her into the original visitation arrangement...

Think Judge Judy folks, if you want to visualize what this woman might have been subject to. Judge Judy was a New York family court judge for over 20 years. Can you imagine what mothers went through who winded up in front of that Judge Judy in family court???

It's terrifying really...

I also understand why she didn't want to let the courts know where her son went to school as they might have easily decided to pick her son up from school and place him in foster care (or worse as they are many far-flung youth residential facilities scattered around NY state) and then made her son do the visitation from there. Maybe even transferred her son into foster care in Arizona to facilitate this since that is where they were originally from and where the father was in prison for 27 years for rape.

Actually there have been numerous newspaper stories of children forced into mental hospitals (again or worse) for not wanting to visit their fathers. I, personally, have never heard of a case where the court was this rigorous with enforcement of a mother's visitation rights. It's just the opposite. In New York state a few years ago, they terminated a mother's visitation because she was smoking (not in front of the child or around the child but the custodial father claimed the child could 'smell' the smoke) so they just terminated this mother's visitation for that...

Again I wanted to preface this article with this information so I could make it clear that this is NOT an unusual situation at all. Mothers are forced ALL THE TIME into sending their kids off to visitation with dangerous men or into dangerous situations and there is not a damn thing they can do about it...

It reminds me of that story I put up a few months back about a mother losing custody of her son and losing her house (after the son was with her for years)...she was actually homeless and couldn't even see him for Christmas as she had no home to bring him to...and she didn't even know her ex had filed court papers until they showed up to toss her out of the house and take her son. The attorney in that article who was being interviewed kept saying what an 'unusual' situation that was as well. Since courts NEVER do exparte custody decisions w/o the other party being informed. This only happens in rare instances where a child is in some sort of imminent danger or something...

Again complete and utter baloney.

Many mothers I communicated with lost their children in exactly this manner, not even knowing that court papers had been FILED by these characters until their children were picked up at school or daycare. They were informed after going to the police to try and get their children back that they had lost custody of them a week or so ago. That was their notification.

Actually that is how I got custody of my youngest daughter. My ex-husband went and filed for divorce and temporary custody of our child but he stipulated he wanted ME to get custody of our infant daughter. This was back in the day before high-child support orders incited the ongoing 'custody wars' raging through our family court system today...and my notification was when he came to my job and served me with the paperwork. So I could have easily lost custody of my infant (three months old at the time) and I never would have been informed that an action was being filed until it was over...

Of course, the usual suspects always say "Well it was only temporary custody" you could have hired an attorney and fought that; but unless you are an ax-murderer temporary custody generally morphs into permanent custody and just like that some a$$hole has taken your child from you and destroyed your life...

Once again, thanks to Dastardy Dads for this info.

This woman is on-point with many of these stories...


WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30, 2010

Mom who objected to visitation with convicted rapist dad released from solitary confinement (Brooklyn, New York)

According to Jaya Saxena at the Gothamist, the mother thrown into solitary confinement at Rikers has been released. The mother's big crime? She objected to sending her 9-year-old son to visit his father, a convicted serial rapist currently serving time at an Arizona prison. Gee, and I thought objecting to something like that was good mothering. Silly me.

I hope Brooklyn Family Court Judge Robin Sheares continues to catch hell from the public for her thoroughly unprofessional behavior and this outrageous miscarriage of justice.

http://gothamist.com/2010/06/29/unsusual_case_of_mother_rapist_fath.php


"Unusual" Case of Mom, Rapist Dad and Visitation Rights

After what Office of Court Administration spokesman David Bookstaver called a "highly unusual" incarceration, a Brooklyn mom has been freed from Rikers. She was originally thrown in on June 10th for refusing to let her 9-year-old son visit his father, a convicted rapist, in prison.

The father, 31, was convicted in 2003 of raping three women in Phoenix and is serving 27 years in an Arizona state prison. A court order mandated that his son, Seon Jones, have twice-a-year visits with his father, and mother Sukhwant Herb originally agreed to the visitation rights in September. However, she later changed her mind. She told the Daily News, "I don't want my son in that environment, seeing the prisoners in jumpers, and the slamming of gates, the noise. My son is 9, and it's horrible, horrific." Brooklyn Family Court Judge Robin Sheares had Herb arrested for the violation, and sent her to Rikers for 50 days.

Bookstaver, the court spokesman, says she was arrested because she missed five court appearances, and that she "was given numerous opportunities to answer simple questions to avoid incarceration." She reportedly could not provide proof of where her son was attending school. But Herb says Sheares was unrelenting, saying "I don't believe you" when she explained she wanted to move to Ohio with her children and fiance Dwayne Waithe. But now, after 18 days in solitary confinement, Sheares changed his mind and ordered her release.

After hearing of the sentencing, High Court officials were reportedly shocked at Sheares' decision to lock up Herb without a chance to post bail. Herb's lawyer, Dale Frederick, said, "No bail in a case like this is really shocking. My client has not been charged with a crime, has never been charged with a crime—and even felons get bail." The judge also made some questionable comments during the sentencing, saying, "Shame, shame, shame, you see how shameful she [Herb] is. She's gonna get arrested and her kids are not gonna know where she is." Sheares released Herb into her lawyer's custody yesterday. There is no word on how her son handled his mother's imprisonment.

By Jaya Saxena in News on June 29, 2010 3:02 PM