my ex husband has temporary custody pending court ordered evaluations (mine are done). In Aug. of 2007, he had his policeman friend come to the door of my home. I had a few beers previously after I had put my 2 year old to bed in her crib. Being naive, I let the officer into my home. before the evening was over, my baby was ripped from my arms and placed in her waiting fathers arms outside of my house and i was arrested and taken to jail! I know you can't drink and drive, but i didn't know you can't put your child to bed and drink some beer. This happened in a very small town with only one judge. Pending my ex-husbands psychological evaluation, I had wanted my then 3 year old daughter to visit with me at my mothers house for a two week period. My ex-husband said no. Then the judge said no. A visit to grandma's house! my child's well being is not his main concern at all. He did this to an older child of his and that child's mother. After he had throughly messed up the older child, he had that child returned to his mother. He also has another child between these two children with another woman and has no contact with that child. 2 years before the cops came to my door, in Sept. of 2005, he had a constable surprise me at the door with divorce papers and told me that the child and i had to vacate the premises immediately. No concern or mention of my ability to care for the baby at that time. I rented a house, got my old job back, found a great babysitter for my daughter. 6 monthes later, i bought a house. Life was never better for me. He started calling my boss at her home and telling her lies about me. She told me, and she said she didn't believe him. She just wanted to warn me. I had friends tell me that he had told people he was going to rip me apart, limb from limb, physically and figuratively. he told my older daughter (17 at the time) he was going to get me in trouble. And when my older daughter testified on the stand, under oath, to that fact, the judge said he couldn't believe her! I keep thinking there has to be hope for me and my daughter, but it seems that i only run into brick walls. I write her letters and make copies of them before i send them. i tell him someday she is going to know the truth and understand what he is doing. He says "I hope so". In November of 2008, I received a registered letter from his attorney stating that i could only call her on the phone on mondays between the hours of 10:00a.m. and 12:00. If i did not abide, the police would arrest me. Now (may '09), I have received a registered letter from his attorney saying I cannot call her at all. If I do, I will be charged with harrasment by communication!
I moved the thread back to the legal board. because it looks like you want to know what to do to spend time with your daughter. There is one answer to that:
GET AN ATTORNEY!!!!! Not only are you up against it because he has an attorney and you don't, but you are also up against it because the police and the courts are apparently prejudiced against you.
You have a mess here, that you need an attorney to unravel. If I woere your attorney I would start by getting the decision to take the child away from you overturned.
If there was a pending court order and you legally had the child for a visit, then there was no grounds for them to take your child away. That this was done by an officer, friendly with your ex, smacks of abuse of power.
I believe an attorney should be able to take this to a higher court to overturn the initially custody order and get a change of venue. But you NEED an attorney to do this.
I did have an attorney, I paid him $4000.00 and when that money ran out he hadn't been able to accomplish anything for me and my baby. Although, in the very beginning, when the judge ordered the psychological evaluations of my ex-husband and me, I remember my attorney telling me to get mine done immediately and when the ex doesn't get his done after a reasonable amount of time, we can get a comtempt of court against him if he doesn't comply. Then, when ex's attorney asked my attorney if ex could skip psychological evaluation, my attorney said "ok"! When i found out, i said "no, don't let him out of that." Yes, two weeks previous to this officer arresting me and taking my child, my ex was very blatantly trying to make it obvious to me that he was communicating with this particular officer. Thank you for your response, ScottGem. Support, rational thinking and good advice keep me perservering no matter how difficult I think things are. Was I unjustly arrested, I believe i was and it sounds like you think so too. My attorney said in the beginning it should have been thrown out of court by the magistrate at the pretrial hearing, but of course it wasn't. Then he said when my older daughter testified about my ex-husbands intentions the judge would see through his tactics, but he didn't. I know the judge hasn't put the facts together that my ex used a constable to remove me and this child from his home two years previous to this incident and I asked my attorney to bring this fact up in court, but he didn't. I don't think he thought it mattered. I also asked my attorney to let me go in front of a senior judge that was filling in for the vacationing, biased judge and he said ok. Later, my brother was inquiring about my case to my attorney, and in my attorneys letter in response to my brother, he said for tactical reasons, he waited for vacationing (biased) judge to return! I actually am set up to have a meeting with the legal aid attorney in this county and i want to have all of my ducks in a row as much as possible, any advice and as much advice as i can get before hand would be much appreciated. I also need to be ready to call the place he will have to go for his psych eval before he goes because they said when i went for mine that they wanted any pertinent information or any concerns i wanted addressed beforehand. yes your answers helped and thanks for moving it back to legal.
if you can document what your attorney did, you may have a malpractice case against him. Sounds to me like he realized he has to appear before that judge in the future and caved.
One piece of advice is to stop changing your story. Another thing is that the courts are suppose to look after the best interest of the child and thats where you should be focusing. Save the pity party stuff for outside the courtroom. Also I have to disagree with Scott on the lawyer you had it sounds like he was trying to follow a line of thinking for later defense and not just washing out. You have to remember that you ran out of money and its normal under those conditions most lawyers will press to just get it over with. If that means compromises then thats where they might go.
One piece of advice is to stop changing your story. Another thing is that the courts are suppose to look after the best interest of the child and thats where you should be focusing. Save the pity party stuff for outside the courtroom. Also I have to disagree with Scott on the lawyer you had it sounds like he was trying to follow a line of thinking for later defense and not just washing out. You have to remember that you ran out of money and its normal under those conditions most lawyers will press to just get it over with. If that means compromises then thats where they might go.
Out of greenies but I agree - sounds like OP is seeking validation and agreement, not advice ... but I said that before.
I always wonder why everyone is against one person.
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