Friday, February 05, 2010

Another little warning for mothers of young children

NYMOM, here's a kidnapping that happened during the Savoie kidnapping, but it was pretty much ignored. Here Jean Paul Lacombe is kidnapped by his dad for THE SECOND TIME:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDIxjHg65a4&feature=related

I just thought this comment was important enough to make a whole separate post out of it.

Women do not realize that many of these situations where a custody dispute leads to calling the police end in exactly this fashion. It all depends upon the response of the police officer in the field and/or the policy of the county you live in and/or if the officer on the scene knows it and/or wishes to enforce it...

I have had women tell me they lost their children through exactly the above situation. Infants especially are vulnerable to abduction in this scenario. AND since possession is often nine tenths of the law, it's nothing for an abducted infant's father to turn up in court the next day filing a petition for temporary custody. Which, as I said many times before, usually leads to permanent custody unless the father is an ax murderer or something.

Actually I had a woman, who I met on a blog, contact me at work one night (just before 5:00) telling me her ex just pulled a similar stunt on their four year old taking her from school and just bringing her to his house. He was refusing to pick up the telephone as well. She asked me if she should to the police that night or to court the next morning. I asked her if she had paperwork documenting her as the custodial parent, she said no. So I told her to go to family court on Monday, (that's how tricky this guy was he showed up at the school on a Friday, so she had to spend an entire weekend w/o even being able to talk to her child).

Anyway, she did go to the police that night and just as I had warned her they did nothing but sent her home. They did a safe-child checkup themselves later that night and called her and told her the child was fine at least. So she spent the whole weekend looking at this project for Halloween she had setup on her coffee table to do with her child that weekend...

Can you imagine.

This woman was a corporate lawyer herself by the way...and didn't know these things could happen.

Long story shorter she ran into her ex on the courthouse steps Monday morning with her daughter in his possession.

HE WAS FILING FOR TEMPORARY CUSTODY FOR HIMSELF...

So mothers, particularly of very young children, have to be aware of this possibility. If they have not filed their paperwork to name themselves as custodial or at least joint custodial clearly outlining the visitation (so you can show a police officer that the other party is in violation, if he hasn't returned the child by such and such a time according to the court papers) there is NOTHING to stop the other party from going down to court and getting themselves temporary custody...

I don't care how long that child has lived with you or how much your ex might have ignored the child previously. Without that legal document stating you are custodial parent, the past means nothing. The police officer won't even listen to you.

I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of this...

Okay.

35 comments:

NYMOM said...

Thanks for this little u-tube video Virago. I cannot ever stress this point enough as it's the main reason most of the non-custodial mothers I know lost custody.

These abductions, not recognized by the police, which then lead to temporary custody and then that's it...

PolishKnight said...

A few things: The you-tube video/case refers to a father illegally abducting a child and now wanted by police while NYMOM refers later to the possibility of children being abducted and then the custody by the father being made legal.

In any case, it's a cute double standard that the Brazilian woman who abducted and ran off with her kid was made to be a victim rather than a villain. What's good for the goose....

NYMOM said...

"The you-tube video/case refers to a father illegally abducting a child and now wanted by police while NYMOM refers later to the possibility of children being abducted and then the custody by the father being made legal."

My point was not to focus on either parent's action since I don't know any of the principals in the case. It was to focus on the actions of the police and how they handed over custody to someone w/o even checking out this kid's story...

Frankly I don't even know if the father was abusive but I do know that this police officer handed over a distraught kid w/o even checking to see if the guy had custody or not...

NYMOM said...

Now, just to let you two know there are going to be some changes around here as I'm tired of the two of you crapping all over this blog...

First I erased Richard's last comment as I'm not going to continue allowing him to insult me.

Second, I like Virago and I'm about to see if she wants to be the moderator on this blog. I simply don't have the time to ensure that the two of you adhere to normal, courteous, discourse in keeping with what this blog is about: mothers...

If Virago cannot accept the role of moderator, I"ll probably have to close comments for a while, as I simply don't have the time to moderate you two properly...

You continue to argue over every post and totally disrespect me and other mothers on this blog and I'm not going to put up with it anymore.

I've already been too patient.

NYMOM said...

"...it's a cute double standard that the Brazilian woman who abducted and ran off with her kid was made to be a victim rather than a villain..."

It's a totally different situation.

First of all that Brazilian woman would have been at a disadvantage in a US court as she wasn't even a citizen. Her son was because he was born here, as was her husband...

Her husband took advantage of this situation to quit his job and force her into supporting him...she had few choices once this happened and all of the choices were bad ones...

BUT my point was NOT about the behavior of the parents but of the police...as usual you missed the point.

Anonymous said...

NY, how many times have I assured you that I would leave any time you wished? All you had to do was ask.

But I'll be calling for my check now because I'm afraid I can't consent to being "moderated" by the individual here most in need of moderation.

PK, too bad NY will never know the irony of THAT suggestion, but it sure gives me a chuckle to leave on.

So I'll say goodbye now, NY, and leave you and V to tell each other how great you are. It's been fun.

Preachitsisterpreachitsister...

R.

virago said...

"So mothers, particularly of very young children, have to be aware of this possibility. If they have not filed their paperwork to name themselves as custodial or at least joint custodial clearly outlining the visitation (so you can show a police officer that the other party is in violation, if he hasn't returned the child by such and such a time according to the court papers) there is NOTHING to stop the other party from going down to court and getting themselves temporary custody..."

Your quite right here. I saw some statistics on parental abductions, and it said women usually abduct after a court order, and men usually abduct in the absence of a court order. That tells me that these guys are probably planning on filing for custody first, and a lot of these guys didn't even live with the mother OR the kids prior to the abduction either. I can see how that could happen. Btw, I have to decline your offer to be a moderator. I'm not sure what the job entails, but if it's erasing comments, I'd be the only one commenting :-). I'm way too biased for the job, and I don't have a problem admitting that. However, I also never made it a practice to whine to you about the other two either. PK excelled at that. OH, well, it's too bad that you feel that you have to close comments for a while, but it's pretty understandable. Maybe everyone needs a cooling off period anyway.

NYMOM said...

"So I'll say goodbye now, NY, and leave you and V to tell each other how great you are. It's been fun."

Good riddance!

NYMOM said...

Sorry you couldn't accept the offer Virago. It did entail moderating comments, but also some postings which could attract some other commenters.

But I understand everyone is busy obviously except Richard and Polish Knight who appeared to have nothing better to do but comment here...even though they do nothing but argue every single point (even the ones they previously agreed with) over and over again. They've totally taken over my blog (my fault I just hadn't been paying enough attention) and I just can't tolerate it any longer.

BTW, although both of them denied it, they were the ultimate internet definition of trolls...I tolerated it long enough so it has to stop one way or the other.

B

NYMOM said...

But back to what I was saying about the moderation, one of the reasons I was attracted to asking you if you wished to moderate was that you appear very perceptive about many of these issues.

Silverside used to comment here (but I think she just got fed up with this nonsense going on as well as busy with her own blog); however, I personally think she's barking up the wrong tree, as all of the stories she posts are aberrations. Since most men do not kill or even harm children. The issues I try to focus on here are very ordinary things that many men do and I want to make mothers aware of them.

You seemed to 'get' this in a way others did not. I'm not talking about men who are murdering children here or sexually abusing them; although I know this does go on but that's not what I want this blog to be about. Instead I want to showcase men who are working the system.

Goldman was a perfect example of this...as was Darren Mack (before the murders of course). This manipulation of the legal system is probably seen by many to be equivalent to cheating on your taxes or creating a phony repair bill with your mechanic to fool the insurance company. So it's very acceptable to many, but there is a large segment of women out there who just aren't aware of what has happened in state laws and public policy and how it can impact the custody of their children in the event their relationship with the child's father goes south...

That's why that u-tube video was so great. NOT because of the father's actions but because of the reaction of the police officer(s) involved. Just like the Darren Mack situation. In my first post about him, I mainly focused on how he was assisted by the legal system to win custody of his first set of children. How did that happen???? Wasn't he psychologically evaluated???? How did they miss all of the serious problems with this guy????

Anyway, these are just the sorts of things I want women to be made aware of...that if they call the police they might not get the assistance they expect, same with the court system. The evaluation is the key piece of evidence that is used to decide custody as over 80% of Judges rule based on what the evaluator recommends. So who are these people what is their training, their agenda, etc.,

We never did find out anything about Mack's first evaluator and how many other fathers with serious anger issues, he got custody of children handed off to...

Additionally I liked the way you compared the Goldman case to other similar ones and were able to highlight the differences and similarities...same with that child support case of the doctors with joint custody.

I just don't have the time or the resources to do the same thing since the computer I'm working on is simply not that good.

Last point, I'm not so interested in comments believe it or not...many people privately email me that they read my blog and liked it but don't publicly comment. So I'm okay with not having a lot of comments...It's mainly the posts I'm interested in having done on various issues of law and public policy impacting mothers. If I could have one done weekly would be fine.

One of the issues I'm currently concerned about is this push to undermine maternity leave and replace it with the so-called 'family' leave...This could have a devastating impact on women if that happened.

I could even see custody cases going to court BEFORE a child is born in order to establish which parent is entitled to claim 'family' leave (1 year at home with 80% of your salary) and be home with baby...

I don't see any discussion of this aspect of the policy change anywhere and I wouldn't mind it being posted about here.

So if you wish to do some research on that issue and put up a post, I'll allow you to...

PolishKnight said...

NYMOM, I've also offered to leave if you asked. I think Richard jumped the gun and should have waited until "V" was named moderator and started flexing her power. I personally think she happens to like responding to us.

For the record, V isn't a mother. Richard said he wouldn't blow it (because he was enjoying watching her antics) but if he's going, I guess it doesn't matter: She's really Kimberly and we have posts from her on another forum. I knew she was making up a lot of her stuff: International fashion model, ex husband who slavishly pays her child-support, working at an institution and having guards take down crazy men on her behalf, visiting lots of "SAH" dads who are just sleeping on the couch, etc. etc. etc. She's a compulsive liar or she has nothing better to do than post here (and elsewhere) for an escape from her mundane, childless life. In any case, if you want her to represent "mothers" as your moderator, enjoy. I have no problem with it.

PolishKnight said...

"Just like the Darren Mack situation. In my first post about him, I mainly focused on how he was assisted by the legal system to win custody of his first set of children. How did that happen???? Wasn't he psychologically evaluated???? How did they miss all of the serious problems with this guy????"

As far as I know, Darren Mack never harmed any children. He attacked his ex and judge over extremely high alimony and child-support.

We could turn this around and ask why the court system routinely gives children to parents who have demonstrated extreme financial irresponsibility and how this has resulted in the children of such parents demonstrating exceptionally poor educational achievement and high crime rates...

virago said...

OMG, I think I'm going to die laughing. Yes, PK, you are right. Kimberly is virago, but so am I. My real first name is Melissa, and I'm the one with the 3 kids. Kimberly is my first cousin, and we are collectively "virago". True story: Virago is the name of a horse that Kim bought, and she sometimes used it on line. I looked up the definition of the word, and I liked what I read. Yes, I shamefully copied it as a username. I liked the symbolism. Kim showed me this blog, and I read it for quite a while before I actually posted anything on it. Long story short: I thought you guys were a couple of assholes especially to Kim. She posted that she was pregnant (she ended up losing that baby), and you guys were absolute jerks. Yes, I started the virago thing, but I had a lot of help from Kim. There were times, you guys were correct. You were talking to Kim. However, it was mainly me that was posting, and it was mainly my life that virago was based on (on this post). Being nasty to you was a lot of fun because you were so easy to see through. OTOH, I figured that Richard had seen some comments by "virago" on other forums because of different things he mentioned. I was waiting for him to say something, but he never had actually came out with it. Nice to know he was "enjoying my antics". Hey, they could've been either me or Kim, but it really doesn't matter now.

Melissa

NYMOM said...

"As far as I know, Darren Mack never harmed any children. He attacked his ex and judge over extremely high alimony and child-support."

So you think he was normal by your standards???? Just because he never harmed a child is that the only criteria they look at??? So you could be a mass murderer of women, have killed dozens of men, robbed banks, be an overall terrible person but never harmed a child???

There are many more crimes then crimes against children that exist in our world...

My question is what exactly do those psychological evaluations show, if a fruitcake like Mack could pass one...

NYMOM said...

"We could turn this around and ask why the court system routinely gives children to parents who have demonstrated extreme financial irresponsibility and how this has resulted in the children of such parents demonstrating exceptionally poor educational achievement and high crime rates..."

Most of the children of the poor are not in the care of their mothers through a custody decision. These mothers have custody by default.

Actually in some states it is stated that you have to be able to support a child in order to get custody...in NY you have to be working for a year.

So it's not as easy as you think for a poor person to head into court to fight for custody. Custody simply defaults to many poor women because others aren't interested.

PolishKnight said...

NYMOM asks: "My question is what exactly do those psychological evaluations show, if a fruitcake like Mack could pass one..."

Psychological screening didn't address whether Mack would be a "fruitcake" if he was assessed excessively high alimony and child support. IMAGINE how many mothers would retain custody if they assessed whether they would act violently if their children were taken away from them and they were ordered to pay 1/2 of their "potential" earnings after taxes...

And indeed, we do have that answer don't we? Bruna from Brazil became a kidnapper. Looks like a good reason to give custody to the law abiding SAH father, eh?

NYMOM asks: "Just because he never harmed a child is that the only criteria they look at???"

I never said only criteria but certainly even a fruitcake like Mack didn't harm his own children. He at least had that going for him.

If you haven't seen the film yet, check out "Minority Report" and the "future crimes" division...

PolishKnight said...

NYMOM asks: "So it's not as easy as you think for a poor person to head into court to fight for custody. Custody simply defaults to many poor women because others aren't interested."

I'm sure if these mothers were forced to pay $2000 a month in "child support" to a foster parent with the threat of imprisonment for default hanging over the women's heads, there would be a lot of takers!

I'm sure these women would all just be happy to work 12 hours a day to pay someone else to raise their children unlike Darren Mack, right?

PolishKnight said...

Virago, say what you like about Richard and I (as you have no doubt already done) but there's one thing you can't deny: Richard and I have lives. We don't need to make up multiple personalities and fantasy worlds.

Hope you have fun back on the International Modeling Scene!

Melissa and Kimberly aka virago said...

"We don't need to make up multiple personalities and fantasy worlds.
Hope you have fun back on the International Modeling Scene!"

Local modeling in Japan is not international modeling. There's a big difference. Believe what you want, PK. Neither one of us really care.

"My question is what exactly do those psychological evaluations show, if a fruitcake like Mack could pass one..."

NYMOM, it's not unusual for these guys to pass one. This guy did, and he's a child molester:

http://mamaliberty.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/court-whores-who-become-madams/

NYMOM said...

"Psychological screening didn't address whether Mack would be a "fruitcake" if he was assessed excessively high alimony and child support. IMAGINE how many mothers would retain custody if they assessed whether they would act violently if their children were taken away from them and they were ordered to pay 1/2 of their "potential" earnings after taxes..."

There was much more to this story then a man 'going off' due to being over-assessed child support and alimony. His first marriage had the exact same issues in it but he didn't go off after that one because he won custody eventually after dragging his first ex back and forth to court dozens of times...

I guess you can only pull those stunts once and get away with it. This particular judge simply wasn't buying it this time around.

Mack was hiding his assets under his mother's name. That's the dirty little secret never mentioned in the press while he played the broke victim card. His second ex assisted him in this little charade against his first wife.

His first attorney talked about it later saying she remembered how the two of them would be in her office copying, sorting paperwork, working together to help him switch custody of his first set of kids.

Of course she never mentioned that this whole scheme was so he could avoiding paying child support.

This dirtbag even had his mother filing a legal brief claiming the wedding ring he gave his ex had to be returned since it was a 'family heirloom'...His 'family' owned and operated a pawnshop so I'm sure that ring was probably pawned to pay a gambling debt in Vegas or something similar...

His second wife probably knew all his little tricks already so that's why it didn't work the second time around.

He probably even had his family paying him a 'paycheck' so it didn't come out that he was an owner of the business.

One of my sisters married a guy who pulled the same stunt (this one in Florida) and he never paid a dime of child support either since as soon as she won custody and filed for child support in New York the 'family' business conveniently fired him...

So don't give me this baloney about Mack that he was a basically decent guy who 'went off' because he was assessed to much money to pay an ex based on his income. He was a scheming, manipulative dirtbag, who wasn't able to get away with the same stunt twice and that's what set him off.

I was watching a show the other day and I heard the term "red collar criminal". It refers to people like Mack who pull so-called 'white collar crimes and then go off and kill when finally confronted.

I believe his evaluation should have picked out his very obvious character flaws. AND this is not the first time I've witnessed men with some devious character traits (which should be obvious) having favorable evaluations and getting custody of children.

I mean say what you will about many crazy women who are mothers most do NOT have legal custody of their children when they commit their crimes.

So I return to my question: what do those evaluations measure. If they are so useless, maybe they shouldn't be permitted to be used as tools in custody cases.

PolishKnight said...

http://www.lvrj.com/news/31247194.html
"Requests for admission are used during the discovery process in civil cases, and experts said it is unlikely that the court order based on Kaufusi's failure to respond could be used in the prosecution of a criminal case. Kaufusi has never faced criminal charges related to the sexual assault allegations."

In addition: "She also claims Slay's "compound and complex questions" caused her to fail the [polygraph] exam."

Yeah, a black guy flees fearful of a lynch mob. He MUST be guilty...

PolishKnight said...

"Local modeling in Japan is not international modeling. There's a big difference. Believe what you want, PK. Neither one of us really care."

Which "neither" are you referring to? Me and you or your multiple personalities?

Yeah, "local" versus "international" modeling in Japan. If you didn't "care" you wouldn't need to make up stuff in the first place including being a mother.

PolishKnight said...

I never said Mack was a decent guy. I merely observed that he apparently didn't harm children and was under severe financial stress at the time. Even if we take the court's word for it, he was expected to pay about 1/2 of his take home pay to his ex wife.

It's intersting you compare Mack to Goldman since it was Goldman's ex who fleed from justice and abducted a child to avoid supporting her ex...

NYMOM said...

"Which "neither" are you referring to? Me and you or your multiple personalities?

Yeah, "local" versus "international" modeling in Japan. If you didn't "care" you wouldn't need to make up stuff in the first place including being a mother."

Please drop this line of commenting or I'm going to have to erase your comments.

I don't know anything about you either except what you tell me. You could be anybody...

NYMOM said...

"It's intersting you compare Mack to Goldman since it was Goldman's ex who fleed from justice and abducted a child to avoid supporting her ex..."

They both have in common successful attempts to work the system.

virago said...

"I don't know anything about you either except what you tell me. You could be anybody..."

Right. Well, the "multiple personalitites" will say this-we actually "got" what your blog was about unlike some of your other commentators. Don't worry about erasing any comments from us. We won't be back.

PolishKnight said...

V, NYMOM was defending you and you misread her.

Hey, this is NYMOM's blog and if she wants to pick favorites and have one-sided standards, that is entirely her perogative. I am merely observing that the credibility of this as a mother's blog is harmed by someone clearly falsely representing herself as such. There have been no serious inconsistencies in my, or Richard's, representations of ourselves.

For the record, NYMOM, I have offered both you and V on several occasions the opportunity to visit or email me. I'm not hiding from you two. I only use a pseudonym because of spammers and roboengines that plunder blogs.

NYMOM said...

"V, NYMOM was defending you and you misread her."

I think she wanted to leave anyway, you probably embarrassed her with these revelations.

AND no, I don't know anything about you or anyone else that I've met while blogging.

It's the nature of the medium.

NYMOM said...

"Hey, this is NYMOM's blog and if she wants to pick favorites and have one-sided standards, that is entirely her perogative. I am merely observing that the credibility of this as a mother's blog is harmed by someone clearly falsely representing herself as such."

Thanks for your concern.

"There have been no serious inconsistencies in my, or Richard's, representations of ourselves."

The inconsistency is in constantly commenting on a blog where you disagree with the basic premise...that's the inconsistency and the internet calls it trolling. Just commenting to disrupt the blog...

I don't know what is so difficult for you to understand about this issue.

PolishKnight said...

NYMOM, disagreement is what makes a blog interesting. I pride myself on disagreeing respectfully with everyone, including Richard.

I hope you find my contribution to your next article useful.

NYMOM said...

Sometimes...

But I'm not here to spend my time arguing with trolls who disagree with the basic premise of my blog...

So keep that in mind going forward...

PolishKnight said...

NYMOM, I take charges of being a troll seriously because I have been around from the beginning (back when the term "internet" didn't even yet exist).

I like this definition from wikipedia:

"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2]"

Note that doesn't mean the poster disagrees with the basic premise but is rather off-topic. Much of your articles about women as mothers focus on their relationships with MEN or SOCIETY. Being a member of both groups, most of my comments therefore are relevent.

On the other hand, NYMOM, V's comments were troll-like by the above definitions with her obsession with my wife's nationality and other elements of my personal life and her own exaggerated accomplishments (Modeling in Japan, being one of the most amusing.)

As I said, it's your blog and you can cut her slack if you like but your doing so reveals a bias worth observing. Is this blog about defending the reputations and power of "women as mothers" or just plain "women?" Also, what do you think "women as mothers" means, exactly? I'm curious as to how you define it.

NYMOM said...

"a troll is someone who posts inflammatory messages in an online community...with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion."

This covers what you and Richard tried to do and if it wasn't for Virago, you would have had my blog in a mess for months...


"Is this blog about defending the reputations and power of "women as mothers or just plain "women?" Also, what do you think "women as mothers" means, exactly? I'm curious as to how you define it."

Women in their role as mothers is what this blog is about...it's not just about women in any role. As you know very well there are many types of women I don't like gender-neutral feminists being chief amongst them...

Clearly Virago understood this as well. It's probably why she wanted us to believe she was a mother...and btw, I'm not sure that she isn't one.

I just have your word saying she's not a mother...

PolishKnight said...

NYMOM, V spent a great deal of time off-topic obsessing about me. I'll confess, I was flattered!

I asked you elaborate by what you meant by "women as mothers." Obviously, it means women who are mothers but I wanted specifics as to what that role meant to you. Is a woman who loses custody of her child still a mother, for example? Men, on the opposite side, have long had to deal with the pain and challenge of being a non-custodial father or working long hours away from one's family to support them.

I would also add that men have to think about fatherhood BEFORE they become fathers. Being a decent father is synomynous in our society with being a stable breadwinner so men have to live up to that role before they even have a spouse and children. So the question for you is: Is "motherhood" simply about _having_ the children and personal care? Or is it more than that?

Regarding V again: Not only do you have my word that V's claims are doubtful but also her actions as well. This ties into what I said above: Children judge parents based upon their actions and the consistency of what they say.

NYMOM said...

"I asked you elaborate by what you meant by "women as mothers." Obviously, it means women who are mothers but I wanted specifics as to what that role meant to you. Is a woman who loses custody of her child still a mother, for example?"

Probably not...it all depends upon the sort of custody she has and the visitation plan.

A paragraph from a study I got off of Trish Wilson's website actually noted that mothers who are non-custodial generally have very poor relationships with their children as adults.

Non-custodial fathers, on the other hand, not so bad (at least as reported by them).

I guess a non-custodial mother has no legitimate role in a child's mind.

Men who pay their child support and see their kid every other weekend, remember birthdays and Christmas can still have some hope that as adults their children will want to build a relationship with them.

For mothers it appears to be all or nothing...

I was emailing with a woman who kept trying to convince me that being non-custodial and giving up your child for adoption were in no way similar. Yet, the more we discussed it the more she realized that losing custody was exactly like giving up your child for adoption (or more like having your child abducted into adoption)...

The only legal 'right' that they can't deny you is paying child support. Even being able to see your child regularly, no matter the age or previous relationship you had with them, is not a given once you lose custody...

I never got into it with Richard, but women who lose their children to social services generally have done something wrong to cause this (most of the time anyway). But a mother can lose custody for absolutely no reason whatsoever, just because some jerk-off Judge needed to fill his gender neutral custody quota that month...


"Men, on the opposite side, have long had to deal with the pain and challenge of being a non-custodial father or working long hours away from one's family to support them."

Well that was the choices men made. It's not like women forced this on them...the way they closed off opportunities to women and still do in many countries today...

Their choices, don't ask me to feel sorry for them now that's it's historically backfired on them...

It's just tough.