This two-part article in the Washington Times follows the money trail of Connecticut family court. Author Aine Nistophain writes about a 9-year-old, Max:
When Max reported to authorities that his father had raped him, the Judge Munro awarded sole custody of him to his father. Suddenly, Max went from living with his mother full time, to seeing his mother a few hours a week in supervised visitation run by strangers armed with clipboards, then no contact at all.
There’s more, and it’s bad. Read:
It makes me angry when I read Max’s story and I know it’s happening to many other children and parents!It is simply abuse of power and beaucratic tape.
Something similar happened to my brother.He refused to give up his parental rights even though the court kept pushing for it.They took away his visitation rights to discourage him.He never gave up those ten years;often traveling out of state to go to court just to find that there was some excuse to set the date for another day!They never even told the children that their father was fighting for them!By the time he got his children back,they were nearly through HS,had been tossed through various foster homes and thought they knew more than their dad!
🙁 Just shaking my head 🙁 Don’t even know what to say..
Donna, thank you for posting these dreadful articles. I had to read, re-read, and RE-read the statement where Max told authorities that he had been raped by his father and that the father who RAPED him was awarded sole custody.
Um………as unfair, unreal, and unbelievable as these details are in this case, they are typical. Quite frankly, I would be seeking some legal remedy to have the issuing Judge removed from the case and investigated – that she would deliver a child into the hands of his “alleged” rapist and then require supervised visitation with the mother (over 100K for 16 months of supervision?!), REEKS of agenda. And, the most horrible and heinous aspects of this situation (and, others) is that there seems to be NO LEGAL REMEDY or advocacy, here. Not even for Max by the Guardian ad Litem.
I’ve posted this, before, but judges in a nearby county were stockholders in private juvenile detention corporations. These judges sentenced children to these facilities when even prosecuting attorneys were asking for probation, ONLY. These judges were taking kickbacks in the form of cash payments from parents who were billed for the incarceration of their children. Most of those children had done nothing bad enough to justify incarceration, and yet they were sentenced to 12 months, or more, in those facilities.
In the case of Sunny and Max, there is a great deal of money being passed around between attorneys, supervision corporations, etc. Who’s in charge of JUDGES?! Or, are they the final word? Seriously, who oversees these people who hold incredible power to either assist, or destroy? I’m just curious who THEIR supervisors are……..
What a horrid, horrid situation. Again, thank you for posting this.
My alcoholic ex-husband filed documents demanding custody early last year. It was just settled. I had to pay for a retainer for a guardian ad litem, for an attorney, for each and every response or document my attorney filed. It cost me thousands of dollars. During that time the ex didn’t see my daughter for nearly 8 months. Not once – not even a phone call. All he wanted was his child support to go away, and nobody once called him on it in open court, not even MY attorney would use it because it wouldn’t go over well with the judge.
My daughter met with the guardian ad litem for one hour and he filed one document with the court with his opinion. He gets paid $100 an hour, but I never got one dime of the 4-figure retainer back.
I was not able to read the actual story. Back when I read Dr. Anna Salter’s book on sexual predators being given back to the very abuser I almost got a major trigger then, and I don’t need a major trigger now.
Just reading the blogs here about the fights with the family court systems is more than enough trauma for my heart right now. I’m with Radar, I don’t know what to say.
Probably better if you don’t read Oxy. It’s enough to make a normal person scream in agony.
It seems that in family court an abusive parent can accuse the good parent of ANYTHING, and the onus is on the good parent to prove it isn’t true. The courts simply don’t want to ask the children what’s going on – you’ve got to pay for outsiders to do it. And it’s going to cost you a fortune.
This rings very true. It is very hard to read. I appreciate Donna’s shining light on this situation. Even one instance is terrible, but this type of thing is happening way more than people realize. It’s just more of the same hideous psychopathic behavior that is beyond most people’s willingness or ability to believe, so they can’t. That makes it even harder for these victims to get help (victims of rape, like Max; victims of financial abuse at the hands of the court system, like Sunny). How can people go up against tyrants like this? It’s really pretty terrifying…. to think of fighting a fight like this that you have only a slim hope of winning, but you can’t afford not to try. And being bankrupted in the process.
For those of us who have a personal brush with family courts, our jaws drop in disbelief that anyone can hear this story and NOT get it, NOT somehow intervene NOW and make it STOP. Please.
I dearly hope that Max retains his love for his mother and can hang onto that to see him through.
The transcripts accessible through the media resource are very disturbing, to say the least.
i just dont understand how society as a whole can turn a blind eye and allow this to happen.
it was too much to stomach.
it’s unbelievable. sometimes i feel like we are living in a psychopathis society.
i can barely watch tv.
if something like Star Trek would come back on. But there is so much ugliness in the world..
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo
Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View by Stanley Milgram Paperback
two books i want to read as to why good people turn bad. bad people behaving typical i get. its when so many good people allow bad people to lead them in a bad direction.
is the entire family court system ruled by Others? not possible. everyday people are allowing such things to go on.
i can’t appeal to the sensibilities of the others. as there are no sensibilities there to appeal to. But to appeal to the everyday people that can put a stop to this.