"My husbnd and his ex wife both have residential and legal custody of their son . The ex in the middle of the night packed up and moved to MD with the boy . My husband has not seen the boy in two years . We have just found out that she has also moved to WV and now lives in WI . Not only has she taken him away from all of his brothers and sisters and all of his extended family. He knows nobody in the states where he has been forced to move. Can she be arrested for parental kidnapping ? "

Why is your question in quotes? Is this homework?

Is there a Court Order? If so, why didn't "your husband" have her held in contempt two years ago?

I don't think the Police will get involved. The Court that issued the original order will.

I have no idea why its in quotes. Lol . We took it to the court and they won't do anything. Its Delaware Ohio they suck... I have looked it up and I think it would be child abuse taking him away from all his family. And moving state to state

No it is not abuse, people move all the time, when my older boys were younger we often moved from state to state every 6 months or so.

You may want to talk to the local DA to see if this is a crime they will do anything about. And you need to go back to family court to get a court order changing custody over to you, ( full) and asking that the child be returned to you and/or the court.

I do not see kidnapping. The child is with his mother. Parental interference, possibly.

Go back to Court - they are incorrect. It is THEIR responsibility to enforce the Order. You may need to get the Order transferred to where she is now and enforce it there. Seems odd to go someplace else to drag her back to Ohio but I've seen it happen.

Who had primary custody? Was there a visitation order by the court. If they had shared residential custody then there should have been a specification that your husband have the child periodically. This is the key here. If the court has ordered that your husband has the child on a set schedule, then the mother is guilty of contempt of court by moving and preventing the father from exercising his rights to be with the child.

Furthermore, if the mother has moved and has not giving the father information about her whereabouts, then she may be guilty of parental kidnapping.

But the first order of business here is for the court to issue a contempt of court order. I suspect that the problem here may be in how the issue was presented to the court. Either that or you are not accurately reflecting the court rulings about custody and visitation.

I would suggest that you get an attorney to prepare the request for a contempt of court citation properly. Once you have this order, you will have to find the child. Armed with that order, you can go pick him up. The mother will then be forced to appear in court to regain custody.

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Originally Posted by matt6288

"My husbnd and his ex wife both have residential and legal custody of their son ... Can she be arrested for parental kidnapping ? "

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Generally speaking, if a custodial parent takes a child away such that the non-custodial parent is unable to exercise their court-ordered parenting time (visitation), then the custodial parent is in violation of the court order, and may be guilty of parental kidnapping. In such a case, your husband should be able to get an emergency court order transferring custody to him, and ordering that the child be returned to him.

I will have to agree with GV70, first we are not given enough information to give you a real life answer. If this is merely a text book question, they will want the answer as it is provided in your text, or they will just want you to pick a side and defend it,

But each state in the US has different laws on this, the name of the law, and the punishment.

But either way, the family court and the DA are the only things you can do at this point