MY daughter is 3 yrs old, he bio father has not been in the picture consistently, he used to come by when he needed to borrow money but never spent time with her and once he got his business established he came by ever 2 or 3 months for anywhere b/t 25-55 minutes at at time... she does not know who he is, I filed a pettition to formalize custody as we got into an argument where he wanted to just take her with him and I said no, for 2 reasons, 1. he has previously threatened me he will take her and disappear and 2 most importantly he has no license and continues to drive , get pulled over and arrested, as far as I am concerend that endangering the welfare of our daughter.

Now all he does is threaten me to withdraw my pettiton , he has threatened me legally and physically, I refuse to back down, I want to formalize this. I am not even askign for child support as he has 2 other children with 2 other woman and is in arrears with them for $40,000 one is about 26,000 and the other 15,000. I am now wondering if the reason he wants me to withdraw is because if I was to file for support it will catch up to him and he may end up in big trouble. Doe anyone know if once we go to trial if his past behavior with his other children who he doesn't support either and whose mothers changed their last names back to theirs and the other one to her new husbands. I need some sort of legal advice we are in NY, if this helps any...

I think your atty is best qualified to give you advice but in most states, the fact that he doesn't always exercise his visitation rights, that he doesn't on time and consistently pay child support are not grounds for keeping a parent who has legal rights of custody/visitation from exercising those rights. If the father poses a danger to the well being of his child, then that is a different matter and by all means you should discuss this with your atty and he / she will probably suggest having those rights taken away.