Leaving State with Child without Custody Order
My question is complicated. My child's father and I separated. The child stays with her Dad during the week because her father caused me to be in such financial turmoil that I have to work 2 jobs to pay the bills for the house and I can't afford daycare. I have my daughter on the wekeends and take her a couple nights a week for dinner at my house with her 3 siblings. We both made plans to relocate to Florida. The father and I were both going to relocate, to separate residences of course, because we felt it was the best place to raise our daughter and we would continue our unofficial joint custody schedule in Florida. We lived there for a year and a half before. WE also agreed that I would travel with my other 3 children and he would travel with our daughter since we were going at th esame time. I made all my plans to move myself and other 3 children down there. I have a deposit on a townhouse, gave notice at my apt here and my job. Basically there is no turnign back at this point or we'd be homelss and me jobless. It has come to my very recent attention that my ex has no set plans to move down to Florida right now. When I ask him he gives me all sorts of run around answers and cannot produce any proof (lease, jobs, plane tickets, etc etc). HIs latest answer is "within 3 weeks of you". Now I am not comfortable with leaving my child behind for fear this is all a game that he is going to try to file for cusoty saying I abandoned her and left her with him in NY. He is a liar and con artist like that. My problem is I cannot change my plans this late, we are set to leave next week. I plan to take our child and leave next week with her. At this point I dn't see how either one of us has more rights to her than the other. If his intenttion is to truly relocate within 3 weeks, it should not be a big deal, he will see her then and we can work out an agreement. My question is since there is no legal divorce, custody, visitation, nothing at all, can he bring kidnapping charges? I was told no because you cannot kidnap your own child if no one has legal custody, that the most he can do is file for custody and he has to win that and take it from there. I can't see him winning custody because he has no legal place to live (he stays with his mom illegally since it's a secion 8 building), he has hardly any income, no money, owes 57k to his first child for back child support, has a second child he never even met, never mind being a sourc eof support for her, not finanically or physicall, or mentally. I also have her 3 siblings. So my question is can I be brough up on kidnapping charges under these circumstances? I have emails that confirm he felt Florida was ath ebest place for our child and that he agreed we would both relocate and do joint down there. Thank you.
