The Seventh Battered Mothers Custody Conference:

Now That We Know, What Are We Doing About It?

January 8th – 10th, 2010 (Friday evening, 6 p.m. – Sunday mid-afternoon)

The Holiday Inn Turf on Wolf Road, Albany, New York

Friday, Jan. 8th

Registration: Friday, January 9th, 4:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Downloadable schedule here.

Throughout the weekend: Book sales table; Silent Auction; Exhibitor tables

Evening Main Session

6:00 – 6:15 p.m. Welcome Mo Therese Hannah, Ph.D., Chair

6:15 – 6:30 Opening Greeting: Representative from NCADV

Opening Address: TBA

6:30 – 7:30 Angela Shelton

7:30 – 8:00 Garland Waller

8:00 – end Lundy Bancroft with Janice Levinson, Protective Mothers Alliance

Saturday, January 10th

Morning Main Session

8:30 – 9:15 Main Session, Keynote I: Wendy Murphy

9:15 – 10:15 Barry Goldstein & Mo Hannah: Now That We Know, What are We Going to Do About It?

10:15 – 10:30 Break

10:30 – 11:15 Dr. Joy Silberg

11:15-12:30 All Faculty Q & A

12:30 – 1:30 Lunch

Afternoon Main Session

1:30 – 2:15 Judge Mike Brigner & Joan Zorza

2:15 – 3:00 Hofheimer panel

3:00 – 3:15 Break

3:15 – 4:00 Erikson, Barnard, Beeker panel

4:00 – 5:00 Concurrent Workshops Session I

1. Karin Huffer’s panel

2. Marlene Debak

3. VOW panel

4. Kristin Hofheimer

5. Renee Beeker & Paul Holdorf

5:00 – 6:00 p.m. Concurrent Workshops Session II

6. Massachusetts Protective Mothers for Custodial Justice

7. Dara Carlin

8. Ursula Williams & Mattie Herald

9. Marcia Pappas

10. Anne Grant

Break for dinner on your own–6:00 – 7:15

7:15 – 8:00 Coffee and Cookies with Ben Atherton Zeman

8:00 — end Connie Valentine, Karen Anderson, the Courageous Kids, and friends: Let’s Get Organized!

Sunday, Jan. 10th Morning Main Session

8:30 — 9:15 Main Session, Keynote III Toby Kleinman

9:15 – 10:00 Karen Borders

10:00 – 10:15 Break

10:15 – 11:15 Robin Yeamans, Karen Winner, & Nancy Erickson panel

11:15 – 12:15 Concurrent Workshop Session III

1. Liane Leedom, M.D.

2. Kathleen Russell, Center for Judicial Excellence

3. Linda Marie Sacks

4. Irene Weiser, Stop Family Violence

12:30 – 2:00 Closing Luncheon; All Faculty Q & A

2:00 Close

Technorati Tags: Seventh,Custody,Conference,Schedule,About,January,afternoon,Turf,Wolf,Road,Albany,York,Registration,Downloadable,Throughout,Book,Silent,Auction,Exhibitor,Main,Session,Welcome,Therese,Hannah,Chair,Representative,NCADV,Angela,Shelton,Garland,Waller,Lundy,Bancroft,Janice,Levinson,Protective,Alliance,Keynote,Wendy,Murphy,Barry,Goldstein,Break,Silberg,Lunch,Judge,Mike,Brigner,Joan,Zorza,Hofheimer,panel,Erikson,Barnard,Beeker,Concurrent,Workshops,Karin,Huffer,Marlene,Debak,Kristin,Renee,Paul,Holdorf,Massachusetts,Custodial,Justice,Dara,Carlin,Ursula,Williams,Mattie,Herald,Marcia,Pappas,Anne,Grant,dinner,Coffee,Cookies,Atherton,Zeman,Connie,Valentine,Karen,Anderson,Courageous,Kids,friends,Toby,Kleinman,Borders,Robin,Yeamans,Winner,Nancy,Erickson,Workshop,Liane,Leedom,Russell,Center,Judicial,Excellence,Linda,Marie,Irene,Weiser,Stop,Violence,Luncheon,Close,sales

The corporate sponsors of Tiger Woods continue to jump ship and throw Tiger to the Wolves. What is interesting is the stories if they are true. That Tiger was injured and required Plastic Surgery to fix his wounds and cosmetic dentistry to repair his broken teeth. The Question is if that is true. Why did Elin get a free pass from Police? And why was she not charged with Domestic Violence?

Mary Blige an Entertainer who opened a Domestic Violence Shelter, is reported to have assaulted her Husband in public in NY. Why was she not charged also? Is it apparently legal for Women to assault their Husbands? And to do so in public? This makes the Federal Violence Against Women’s Act a joke. It is now apparently legal for Women to use weapons, deadly force, or simple assault on their Husbands with impunity.

Mary Winkler and Lorena Bobbit are living their lives. While their Husbands have been murdered, and maimed. There are now two standards for Domestic Abuse in the US. One for Women and another for Men. Men apparently are subhuman and have no rights. The Constitution is being violated and our natural rights trampled upon.

While I condemn Tiger’s infidelity, I am appalled at the Double Standard when it comes to violence. As usual the Media is silent on this. Here is the link on Mary J. Blige.

http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/blige_hauls_off_on_husband_o32W7IKFja08UXzRipJiHI

X-17 report on Tiger Woods plastic surgery. His wounds were more severe than were reported.

Happy New Year!

Filed under: Activism, Batterers, Corrupt Judges, Corrupt Lawyers, Corrupt bastards, Corrupt politicians — justice4mothers @ 1:50 pm

RightsForMothers.com

Remember to hang in there, Karma usually comes back around to get ‘em…here’s to a safe and judicially effective Happy New Year!

Technorati Tags: RightsForMothers,Activism,Batterers,Corrupt,Judges,Remember,Karma,Lawyers

Oh Dear Deidre!

Not a political post this, but pretty relevant to how society views men.

Deidrie is the agony aunt for The Sun and today there was a problem headed ‘I Hit My Child’s Father’.

It was from a girl of 23 who hits out at her boyfriend who is 24 if he doesn’t behave how she wants – in this case he didn’t do the washing up.

Deidrie’s advice was to work out strategies to stop the violence which is fair enough but she then goes on to say “look at your boyfriend’s role in this too – why did he wind you up by not doing his share”.

OK, none of us know the ins and outs of this particular relationship but  imagine if the roles were reversed and a guy admitted he hit out at his girlfriend – can you imagine Deidrie saying  “look at your girlfriend’s role in this too – why did she wind you up by not doing her share”…. I don’t think so.

Come on Deidre, men are victims of Domestic Violence as well and as we always hear there are no excuses.

Parental Alienation Syndrome

LET US GO JUDGE-!! STOP PUNISHING MY DAUGHTER and I FOR SURVIVING~!

November 4, 2008 hearing Judge ‘Death’ David Debenham denies granddaughter to attend her Granny’s funeral

Listen to Claudine Dombrowski: Oral Testimony to the Kansas Joint Committee on Children’s Issues.

12/21/2009-Hearing for 1/8/10 rescheduled due to conflict in Court’s schedule to 1/22/10 at 1:30 p.m.

WTF conflict does this  court have besides being total  asswipes…? I know, maybe we have to give another ABUSER (like Hal Richardson) that demands HIS parenting time!!- their RIGHTS to continue to abuse!!!

I mean after all, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE in bonding and re-bonding and a child separated/victimized by an abuser-Why Does He Do That?, When Dad Hurts Mom, The Batterer as Parent. Best way to keep them silenced so they can be tortured more!

Ask any P.O.W. For Christ Sakes… we let GITMO terrorists go home! FREE MY DAUGHTER and MYSELF already– we have been kept apart and tortured for over a decade ~! ( to PROTECT the PERP’s Right) – that would be daddy btw- Hal Richardson Business’s aka known as DRUG fronts Minute Man Solar Film and Topeka Vinyl 133 se 29th street Topeka Kansas Hal Richardson – wife beater- child abuser

Just ask Odyssey and Kara Haney, Drex Flott- et el  ‘we aim to reintegrate fucking pedophiles BACK INTO THE HOME’ but battered moms- Noooooooooo- Odyssey Group of Topeka KS (a Private for Profit by Child Abuse Agency) has aligned with the GAL Court Whore  M. Jill Dykes

-that would be a SANE, constitutional and HUMAN thing to do thing to do. We cant do that!!

The Court Whores Madams e.g. M. Jill Dykes, Dr. David Rodeheffer MHP, Dr. William Albott MHP, Dr. Richard Maxfield MHP, Dr. Bud Dale MHP (to name Just a few) Judges and other COURT APPOINTED CHILD ABUSERS who all profit  from YOUR torture…. those pockets run deep-even Judge David Debenham as he continues to fuck up the lives of children.

As a wise man and good conservative recently said to me; ‘SACK UP’ already Judge- and get on with it…Judge David ‘death’ Debenham,

THIRD JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT SHAWNEE COUNTY, KANSAS

Domestic violence is on the rise in Shawnee County | KTKA.com

Petition To Inter American Commission On Human Rights (Dombrowski et el V. US 2007)

Complete Petition To Inter American Commission On Human Rights

• IACHR Press Release.
• Full Text of IACHR Petition.
• Interview with Dianne Post, J.D.
• Claudine Dombrowski Photos of Abuse
• Alleged Violations of the Declaration of the Duties and Rights of Man

Compelling stories from parents and grandparents about problems with placement and removal of children

By Earl Glynn On December 4, 2009

Attached motion for contempt Testimony given at the Kansas State Joint Committee on Children’s Issues-‘being used to ‘sever’ another ‘battered mother’s parental rights.” Read details in written statement.   |   Listen to Claudine Dombrowski:

2009 September 22 -Tuck to Hoffman -demand for visits now aint that the shit..? When was the LAST Time you saw your kid? Do YOU KNOW where YOUR child is? I don’t.

http://www.shawneecourt.org/doe/search.jsp?caseNumber=96D+000217&location

12/21/2009-Hearing for 1/8/10 rescheduled due to conflict in Court’s schedule to 1/22/10 at 1:30 p.m.

11/13/2009-MISC. Petitioner in person and by Don Hoffman. Respondent in person and by Robert E. Duncan, II. G.A.L., Jill Dykes, in person. Court Reporter: Digital Div. 13. Matter comes before Court on Respondent’s motion for unsupervised visitation and Petitioner’s motion for contempt. Parties have agreed that motion for contempt will be deferred pending Petitioner’s locating and removing all referenced items to the minor child on the internet. Matter to be reset if disagreement between the parties about removal of items referring to minor child and her likeness from internet. Court interview minor child – no record per agreement of the parties. Court suspends parenting time of Respondent due to Respondent’s continued use of her website and the internet to publish photographs of minor child and statements reference minor child. Court will entertain motion to reinstate parenting time once Respondent deletes all photographs and likenesses of minor child, any reference to minor child on her website and the internet, agree not to discuss Court proceedings with minor child and not to discuss divorce with minor child . Review set for December 16, 2009, at 10:00 a.m. T. Duncan to do JE. DBD

http://justiceformothers.com/96d217.aspx

Media 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 07:27 Claudine Dombrowski Case No. 96-D-217 Shawnee County Courts Topeka, KS 2001 Original Website: Nine years later, -justice still has not risen her head, indeed, continued abuse, punishment, coercion, control and torture continues…. april 2- 2008 emergency motion to reinstate_damagetochild incurred by courts failure [2 of 6] 12-08-2003 rodeheffer [3 of 6 ] 1-22-2004 – rodeheffer [1 of 6] 11-25-2003 rodeheffer 1-14-2009 gal payed for abuses mary bickford school sec bethany email 2006 2009 December 16 Exhibits for Contempt Against Mother for Testimony to Kansas Joint Committee on Children’s Issues December 2009 2009- jan 2009 January 14 GAL M. Jill Dykes Court Appointed Abuser submits for OVERTIME pay

MOTHERS FILE INTERNATIONAL COMPLAINT AGAINST UNITED STATES Mother’s day complaint claims United States courts violate human rights of abused women and children. Patriotic Thunder-KS Local Issues Kansas Judges -what we heard absolutely disgusted us about them. Common sense says if you rape a little girl or beat the hell out of your wife you shall get punished for that in a severe matter.  However, the law states otherwise, and the list of outrage goes on….. Sentencing guidelines a hot topic at the Statehouse – 49abcnews.com Activist and family violence victim herself, Claudine Dombrowski,joined members of the community as they discussed, along with representative Joe Patton, … Kansas Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence Supports Justice for Mothers-Mother’s Day lawsuit. A case from Kansas is part of the lawsuit. http://www.kcsdv.org/psmothers.html The Manhattan Free Press On Line To Claudine Dombrowski it is not beautiful, that is her daughter, six-year-old Rikki on the couch behind the threatening coffee table. OUTRAGES: Bad decisions, Bad judges, Bad experts, Bad ethics, Bad …CLAUDINE DOMBROWSKI CASE , Shawnee County, Kansas . Claudine lost custody of her baby daughter Rikki to Hal Richardson, the man who did this, thanks to Judge James P. Buchele…. Manhattan resident fights custody battle for daughter All she wants is to get her daughter back. Claudine Dombrowski, a Manhattan resident, is fighting for the custody of her 6-year-old daughter….

Topeka, Kansas, Court Whores; M.Jill Dykes GAL, Odyssey and Don Hoffman Atty. for the PERP Halleck Richardson- wife beater and child abuser, hydroponic Marijuana grower (ohhhh …and snitch) oopps is the cat out of bag ..?

Tribute Video to three Generations, Grandmother Daughter and Granddaughter Even in DEATH Justice Denied!

Compelling stories from parents and grandparents about problems with placement and removal of children

By Earl Glynn On December 4, 2009

Claudine Dombrowski

Claudine Dombrowski: An abused mom victimized again by the Kansas Courts

Read details in written statement.

Listen to Claudine Dombrowski:

This is an truly incredible story that should never have happened in America.

Parts of the Kansas Judicial system should be disciplined for how it has victimized Ms. Dombrowski, who was an abused mom.

Instead of quotes from the audio, please consult these pages that document Dombrowski’s long and difficult battle to protect her daughter:

• Claudine Dombrowski Photos of Abuse

As you view these photos keep in mind that the court awarded FULL CUSTODY of their daughter to the “man” who did this to Claudine.

• Courts Have Continued Abuse of Manhattan Women, Manhattan Free Press, July 12, 2001.
• Manhattan resident fights custody battle for daughter, Kansas State Collegian, July 26, 2001.

State Rep Bill Otto: “No crime? You haven’t been guilty of anything? This is a court order that says you can’t go to any school functions?”

“I was under court order till 2004 to not even call the police after I was being beaten because … I was not ‘co-parenting’”

Dombrowski: “These friends of the court make recommendations to the judge. The parents … don’t have a right to see these documents. They do this behind closed doors.”

Otto: (To Secretary Jordan): “You have no rights as a parent …?”

Secretary Don Jordan: “This would be something extreme … I’m not familiar with the situation.”

Otto: “Can a judge do that? … Is that legal… ?”

Jordan: “Under the right circumstances … I hesitate to speculate.”

Sen. Roger Reitz: “This is something that only … the judicial system can really answer … It would be helpful … to have someone … representing the judicial system … to give us some ideas how this could happen.”

Dombrowski: “When you are a victim of domestic violence, and suddenly there’s a child involved, the typical …. power of control is that ‘I’ll take your children from you’. They will and they can the way the laws are setup.” …

“I was told that I’m not to talk to my daughter about the violence. That’s why I don’t see her. That’s why I see her supervised. He was criminally convicted. “

“When women try to get away from people who hurt them … I heard somebody say it’s really hard to believe you won’t call the police … I tell people not to contact the police, because as soon as you walk into court with a DV (domestic violence) and children, you’re already cutting your throat. You will lose your children. That’s the way it is right now.”

“… on the 16th of this month I’ll probably go to jail for breaking the gag order and talking about [being the victim of] violence as it relates to my case.”

Reitz: “… someone ought to be able to deal with this in a way that would address her problem. It doesn’t seem like we’ve done the right thing with regards to this little niche of the law.”

Dombrowski: “The criminal convictions are completely tossed aside and they don’t have any bearing on the family court … The eight criminal convictions that my ex had before getting custody of my daughter were completely dropped [in family court]“

Chair Kiegerl: “I cannot believe that abuse is totally ignored. I cannot believe you can prohibit a person from speaking about their own case.”

“The one thing [where] … I disagree with you is abuse should always be reported.”

State Rep Peggy Mast (R-Emporia): “Domestic violence is a control issue. Sexual abuse is a control issue. Is there any correlation between domestic violence and sexual abuse? Why is that not something that is considered when we take someone to [family] court that has a history of domestic violence?”

Dombrowski: “Yes. That is something I’ve asked myself for 16 years. … It comes back to the family court that has a veil of immunity. … They don’t fully understand the impact of the violence. What battered women have … if they report the abuse, then they’re failing to protect their child … if they don’t report the abuse, they’re still failing to protect their child. So, both ways, they’re going to lose their children …”

For anybody who abuses their wife … [from] a 1996 presidential task force … there is a 70% increase that those children will be abused and/or sexually abused after there’s been battery with the mother.

Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudea: “In 2004 …. I talked with the homicide department in Sedgwick County…. During that time there had been 21 homicides in Sedgwick County and 18 were due to domestic violence …”

“A lot of women do make those phone calls and unfortunately, sometimes it ends in their death.” …

“I want to apologize to you for being treated like a pedophile … not being able to go to a music concert.”

“I commend you for what you’re doing.”

Dombrowski: “I have not talked to my daughter in 10 years [except] for the confines of supervised visits. I’m not allowed to talk to her about anything. All she knows is what her dad has told her.”

Listen to Claudine Dombrowski:

http://www.stopfamilyviolence.org/pages/308

AFTER EX-HUSBAND BEAT HER WITH A CROW BAR, 1996

AFTER EX-HUSBAND RAPED AND BATTERED HER, 2000

AFTER EX-HUSBAND HIRED SOMEONE TO ASSAULT HER, 2003

Published May 11, 2007

IACHR Press Release.

PRESS RELEASE
May 11, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Irene Weiser
actnow ^t stopfamilyviolence.org
607-539-6856

MOTHERS FILE INTERNATIONAL COMPLAINT AGAINST UNITED STATES

Mother’s day complaint claims United States courts violate human rights of abused women and children.

NEW YORK, On May 11, just before Mother’s Day weekend, ten mothers, one victimized child, now an adult, leading national and state organizations filed a complaint against the United States with the Inter American Commission on Human Rights. The case claims that U.S. courts, by frequently awarding child custody to abusers and child molesters, has failed to protect the life, liberties, security and other human rights of abused mothers and their children.

“For more than 30 years U.S. judges have given custody or unsupervised visitation of children to abusers and molesters putting the children directly at risk,” says Dianne Post, an international attorney who authored the petition.  “These horrendous human rights violations have been brought to the attention of family court systems, and state and federal governments, to no avail. We turn now to international courts to protect the rights and safety of US children.”

The complaint details several cases with documented medical evidence of child sexual abuse, yet in each instance the father who was accused of abuse was given full custody of the children.  Several of the mothers were jailed by the courts because of their persistent efforts to protect their children from abuse, several were ordered not to speak of the abuse and not to report abuse to authorities.  Every mother was denied contact with her child for some period of time though none was ever proven to have harmed them.

“My life was completely shattered apart on that day and my childhood was destroyed,” said Jeff Hoverson, the adult child petitioner, about the day a family court judge ordered sheriff deputies to deliver him into the custody of his abuser. “It was as if I was just kidnapped. I was torn from everything I knew….I was made into a possession rather than a child.”  Hoverson endured years of trauma and fear living in his father’s home before escaping and returning to his mother at age 17.  He is haunted by years of feeling helpless to prevent his father’s night-time visits to his sisters’ bedrooms.

“The cases in this petition represent the proverbial tip of the iceberg,” says Irene Weiser, executive director of the online organization  Stop Family Violence.  “We are contacted by an average of three protective mothers each week who have lost custody to fathers accused of child abuse – in many cases with supporting medical evidence. This is a nationwide crisis of enormous proportion.”

“The lives of thousands of children and mothers have been irreparably harmed by family courts across our nation,” says Joyanna Silberg, Ph.D., executive vice-president of The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence, another national organizations supporting the petition. “The years of trauma and psychological abuse because of the courts’ failings result in lasting emotional damage to the children they are supposed to protect.”

Studies of gender bias in the courts, conducted in the 1980’s and 90’s, found disturbing trends of courts minimizing or excusing men’s violence against women, and favoring the abusers.  In 1990 the United States Congress passed a resolution recommending the prohibition of giving joint or sole custody to abusers.  Seventeen years later, the practice continues unabated.  Ten years ago today, leading national organizations were joined by  members of Congress in a protest in Washington D.C. to again raise awareness about the problems in family courts.  Today, petitioners say, the problem is systemic and widespread in family law courts across the nation.

The petition seeks a finding from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the U.S. has violated the Declaration of the Rights and Responsibilities of Man and the Charter of the Organization of American States and a statement of the steps that the U.S. must take to comply with its human rights obligations in regards to battered women and children in child custody cases.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights was created in 1959 and is expressly authorized to examine allegations of human rights violations by members of the Organization of American States, which include the United States. It also carries out on-site visits to observe the general human rights situations in all 35 member states of the Organization of American States and to investigate specific allegations of violations of Inter-American human rights treaties. Its charge is to promote the observance and the defense of human rights in the Americas.

Dianne Post, a 1980 graduate of the University of Wisconsin law school, has worked on issues of gender based violence since 1976.  In addition to private practice and legal aid, she has taught legal classes and been a consultant working or living in Russia, Cambodia, Hungary and some dozen other countries. She is currently in Vladivostok, Russia.

In addition to The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence, other national organizations supporting the international lawsuit include: National Organization for Women and the NOW Foundation, National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Justice For Children, National Family Court Watch Project, Legal Momentum, Family Violence Prevention Fund, National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, Domestic Violence Report, Sidran Traumatic Stress Institute, and the National Center on Sexual and Domestic Violence. The petition is supported by many state organizations as well.

In December 2005, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a petition against the United States with the Inter American Commission on Human Rights for their failure to protect Jessica Gonzales’ three children from their abusive father, who murdered them.  Their petition, the first of its kind, asserted that domestic violence victims have the right to be protected by the state from the violent acts of their abusers.

For additional information contact:
Irene Weiser
Stop Family Violence
actnow ^t stopfamilyviolence.org
607-539-6856

View the petition at http://www.StopFamilyViolence.org/468

Technorati Tags: Conflict,Court,Schedule,Claudine,Dombrowski,Shawnee,Case,JUDGE,STOP,DAUGHTER,November,Death,David,Debenham,Granny,funeral,Listen,Oral,Testimony,Kansas,Joint,Committee,Children,ABUSER,Richardson,demands,RIGHTS,TIME,ESSENCE,Batterer,Parent,Best,Christ,Sakes,GITMO,FREE,MYSELF,PROTECT,PERP,DRUG,Minute,Solar,Film,Topeka,Vinyl,street,wife,beater,Just,Odyssey,Kara,Haney,Drex,Flott,BACK,INTO,HOME,Noooooooooo,Group,Private,Profit,Child,Abuse,Agency,Jill,Dykes,SANE,HUMAN,cant,Whores,Madams,Rodeheffer,William,Albott,Richard,Maxfield,Dale,Judges,ABUSERS,SACK,THIRD,JUDICIAL,DISTRICT,Domestic,violence,KTKA,Petition,Inter,American,Commission,Complete,IACHR,Release,Full,Text,Interview,Dianne,Post,Declaration,problems,placement,removal,Earl,Glynn,December,contempt,State,Read,statement,September,Tuck,Hoffman,LAST,location,MISC,Petitioner,person,Respondent,Robert,Duncan,Reporter,Digital,Matter,items,disagreement,agreement,reference,proceedings,Review,Courts,Original,Website,Nine,justice,punishment,coercion,emergency,failure,Against,Mother,January,OVERTIME,FILE,INTERNATIONAL,COMPLAINT,Patriotic,Thunder,Local,Common,girl,hell,guidelines,topic,Statehouse,Activist,victim,Patton,Coalition,Sexual,Supports,lawsuit,Manhattan,Line,Rikki,ethics,custody,James,Buchele,Halleck,Marijuana,grower,Tribute,Video,Grandmother,Granddaughter,America,system,Instead,quotes,Women,Collegian,Bill,Otto,crime,haven,friends,documents,Secretary,Jordan,situation,Under,Roger,Reitz,ideas,setup,somebody,throat,niche,Chair,Kiegerl,Peggy,Mast,Emporia,correlation,history,impact,task,battery,Oletha,Faust,Goudea,homicide,department,Sedgwick,ends,music,concert,HUSBAND,BEAT,ASSAULT,IMMEDIATE,CONTACT,Irene,Weiser,YORK,life,attorney,attention,avail,cases,instance,father,Several,efforts,authorities,period,Jeff,Hoverson,possession,trauma,director,organization,crisis,proportion,nation,Joyanna,Silberg,president,Leadership,Council,Interpersonal,result,gender,bias,prohibition,Washington,Responsibilities,Charter,steps,member,observance,defense,Americas,Wisconsin,addition,classes,consultant,Russia,Cambodia,Hungary,Vladivostok,National,Foundation,Watch,Project,Legal,Momentum,Prevention,Fund,Alliance,Report,Sidran,Traumatic,Institute,Center,Civil,Union,Jessica,Gonzales,victims,View,StopFamilyViolence,Photos,Violations,statements,members,decisions,Generations,recommendations,doors,convictions,homicides,organizations,systems,governments,fathers,trends,petitioners,obligations,allegations,situations,parents,grandparents,visitation,internet,three,molesters

Hi,

This is my first blog, and I would like to start with a question.
“Why do we have laws, if it is not helping in bringing order?”

The first and foremost reason for having a law in civilisation was to bring order to the society and its workings. But if you see the present situation in India, the law is not for bringing order but it is spreading dis-order and misery in society. All the laws are being highly mis-used by anyone who has the time for it. As a so called common man no one wants to use law even if there is genuine need for it. Only the criminal elements or people with criminal minds are using laws to legally trouble or harass someone against whom they have a grudge.

The wives of today too – When they see that their fancies are not followed to the word, they want to use the laws (lop-sided women centric) for their illegal means and extortion. And this so-called judiciary or the police is helping them to achieve this nefarious motive.

How will this change? It will change only when everyone stands up for their rights and do not give in to this legal terrorism and extortion racket.

HIGH SCORE- for Godbey !!

fits EACH of the 9 criteria! Give that man an award for dumb ass of the decade.  Go stalk some else –asshole– there is no treatment for ASSHOLE  Personality’s though (except lead injection.) *dream*

DSM IV definition: Someone who suffers from Narcissistic Personality disorder (NPD) has at least 5 of the following characteristics:

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

Dossier: Mark K Godbey

Mark K Godbey has a long history of frivolous litigation against his ex wife.  Despite numerous restraining orders made against him, he continued to persue her through the courts.   He was sentenced for contempt on two occasions.
Alike most advocates for shared parenting, he publicly claims to promote that children are better off with both parents and privately cheers on cases where the child has been deprived of the mother:

Labels: Fathers Rights, Mark Godbey, Mark K Godbey, Mark Kevin Godbey

http://www.narcissism101.com/Beginning/dsm_iv.html

DSM IV definition: Someone who suffers from Narcissistic Personality disorder (NPD) has at least 5 of the following characteristics:

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

Associated Features: Depressed Mood Dramatic or Erratic or Antisocial Personality

Differential Diagnosis Some disorders have similar or even the same symptom.
Histrionic Personality Disorder; Antisocial Personality Disorder; Borderline Personality Disorder; Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder; Schizotypal Personality Disorder; Paranoid Personality Disorder; Manic Episodes; Hypomanic Episodes; Personality Change Due to a General Medical Condition; Symptoms that may develop in association with chronic substance use.

Go to Sam Vaknin

Technorati Tags: Dossier,Mark,Godbey,definition,Narcissistic,disorder,characteristics,self,importance,brilliance,status,admiration,entitlement,expectations,treatment,compliance,advantage,ends,empathy,feelings,needs,history,litigation,wife,Despite,orders,courts,contempt,Alike,children,cheers,cases,Rights,Kevin,Features,Mood,Dramatic,Erratic,Antisocial,Differential,Diagnosis,Some,symptom,Histrionic,Borderline,Obsessive,Compulsive,Schizotypal,Paranoid,Manic,Hypomanic,Change,General,Medical,Condition,substance,Vaknin,achievements,talents,institutions,attitudes,Fathers,disorders,Episodes,Symptoms,fantasies,behaviors

“Children Taken By The Family Court” Handprints

Filed under: Activism, Battered Mothers Custody Conference, Child Custody, Child Custody Battle, Child Custody Issues, Child Custody Mediation, Child Custody for mothers, Child custody for fathers, Children who witness abuse, Conferences, Domestic Abuse,Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, Domestic Violence by Proxy, Family Court Reform, Family Courts, Family Rights, Legal abuse, Non-custodial Mothers, Noncustodial Mothers — justice4mothers @ 11:39 am

For the 1^st year, the Seventh Annual Battered Mothers Custody Conference 2010 is hosting the construction of children’s handprints who have been taken by the family courts.

Just imagine, a long clothesline, with mini wooden clothespins, and handprints of all sizes, representing protective mothers and their children who have been “legally kidnapped” by the family courts.

We are asking Mothers who have lost physical custody of their child(ren) to create handprints to commemorate their lost child(ren). Throughout weekend of the conference, we will be providing materials and ask Mothers to add paper cut-out handprints to the clothesline.

However, Mothers do NOT need to be in attendance at the conference in order to add their handprints.  Please mail the handprints before Jan. 2, 2010 to:

Linda Marie Sacks  P.O. Box 730966 Ormond Beach, FL 32173

after Jan 2, 2010 please mail to:

Dr. Mo Hannah, Chair, BMCC 2010   26 Purcell Avenue Latham NY 1211    mhannah413@aol.com518-210-2487

Instructions:  Place your child’s hands on a piece of paper, trace your child’s handprints (left and right) on colored paper, cut out and write a message if you’d like and mail before the conference to Linda Marie, as she will constructing the clothesline and will have it at the conference. After the Jan. 2^th date…please send to Dr. Mo Hannah.

Sadly, if you cannot see your child(ren) to trace their handprints, please, trace YOUR handprints for every child you have lost to the crisis in the courts.

Once the handprints are constructed, we will lend it out to individuals and organizations for promoting and publicizing the problems faced by battered mothers and children within the family court system.

One day justice will prevail…..thanks to all the wonderful people who are part of the solutions to the family court crisis.

Technorati Tags: Children,Taken,Court,Handprints,Activism,Custody,Conference,Child,Battle,Mediation,Domestic,Abuse,Relations,Violence,Proxy,Reform,Courts,Rights,Legal,Noncustodial,Seventh,Annual,construction,Just,Throughout,paper,attendance,Linda,Marie,Ormond,Beach,Hannah,Chair,BMCC,Purcell,Avenue,Latham,Instructions,Place,piece,message,crisis,Once,individuals,problems,system,justice,fathers,Conferences,sizes,organizations,solutions,clothesline

Fathers: Do you want full custody of your child without having to pay ANY child support?

All you have to do is sexually abuse your child.

Just make sure that NO ONE is looking and make sure there is NO physical evidence. If your child doesn’t tell his/her mother, do it again until whatever you do disturbs your child so much that your child will tell Mom. Then just sit back and relax. Your work is done!

BE SURE to document how upset your ex-wife/girlfriend gets when she hears about what you did. The more she tries to protect the child, the more she’ll look "crazy" because there are NO witnesses and NO physical evidence.

Then find a court evaluator and a lawyer who do "parental alienation" cases. They will tell the judge that your ex-wife/ex-girlfriend has "Parental Alienation Syndrome" and/or "Munchhausen Syndrome"

Just Google "father’s rights" and you’ll find plenty of help with this legal strategy.

Remember to stay cool when you’re in court. The more composed you appear, the more your ex will seem crazy because she’ll KNOW you sexually abused your child

The court won’t protect your child from further abuse because there’s NO proof and YOUR the biological father with the RIGHT to raise your child! It’s important to say things like "I want shared custody" (even though you really don’t).

When you see the case start to go your way, remember to play the part. Look worried and say things that make the judge think that you are concerned about your ex’s mental condition. Say that you want her to have contact with your children but that her contact should be "supervised" so she can’t continue to "alienate" your children from you.

The judge will take your children from her and give her only "supervised visits" Once that happens, watch how upset and "crazy" she’ll get!

Contact the "father’s right’s" groups. They’ll help you find the right people to talk with about this winning strategy!

Sick strategy? Yes. A national scandal bigger than the Catholic Church scandal.

Posted by:
silencedmother 7:50 AM

I have seen similar comments all over the internet about how Islam has the right idea, that the men are treated right, etc.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/ChrisCuomo/fighting-liam-fathers-custody-battle-continues/comments?type=story&id=9315571

Comment

I am continually amazed at how tainted opinions are towards women. The comments that the ‘male ruled courts’ are unjust towards women astounds me. What percentage of fathers are awarded custody of their children while they are held financially responsible, even when in cases where the mother is unfit by any measure? Where is it written that a mother is a better parent than a father? We are victims of a society that believes a woman is "special" because she has a ####. In truth, women are passive aggressive, manipulative, and vengeful. They emasculate boy children and convince girls they are special because they have a ####. Where would these women be without a man and his penis? This entire attitude is so off the mark. After all, Eve would not exist without Adam’s rib. Women weaken the human race. The nation of Islam has the right idea. They truly know how much women are truly worth.

Posted by:
DesertColonel 2:37 AM

Mark As Violation

Fighting for Liam: Michael McCarty Rails Against Italian Courts for Not Protecting Son

Italian Authorities Say They Can’t Locate Mom but She Made a Statement to ‘20/20′

For most Americans, a trip to Italy means a romantic getaway. But for Michael McCarty, who has made more than 15 trips to Italy over the past two years, these treks have been anything but an escape. That’s because he is desperately trying to bring back what means the most to him in the world: his 8-year-old son, Liam. McCarty’s ex-wife, Manuela Antonelli, took Liam to her native country more than two years ago, and he’s been fighting to get him back ever since. After hitting continual… Full Story

Technorati Tags: custody,Just,SURE,wife,evaluator,lawyer,alienation,cases,Parental,Syndrome,Munchhausen,Google,father,rights,strategy,Remember,Look,children,Once,Contact,Sick,scandal,Catholic,Church,comments,Islam,ChrisCuomo,Comment,male,courts,percentage,Where,parent,victims,woman,truth,attitude,Adam,Women,human,nation,worth,DesertColonel,Mark,Violation,Liam,Michael,Against,Italian,Authorities,Locate,Made,Statement,Americans,world,Manuela,Antonelli,Full,Story,Fathers,opinions,Rails,girlfriend,towards

I’m currently obsessed with DV by Dolce Vita shoes. I’ve always liked Dolce Vita but their new lower price point line is AMAZING.  My current favorites:

Maren Pump: $99.95

Cooper Bootie: $129.95

15 THINGS THAT A BATTERED WOMAN NEEDS.
by Susan G. S. McGee

1.) VALIDATION – support, belief, belief that what she’s suffered is abuse and is wrong,
belief in the details of her story, belief that she is not crazy, belief in the sometimes
unbelievable malice and planned terrorism of the batterer.

2.) SUPPORT, COMFORT, RESPITE – to be told that she is a worthwhile, valuable, wonderful human being, that she is lovable, that she matters – to be told over and over and over. She needs some plain old down home kindness and caring. She needs some time to herself.

3.) TO BE ASKED “What do you want? What do you need?” And she needs her
answers taken seriously.

4.)  NOT TO BE EVALUATED, NOT TO BE BLAMED, NOT TO BE PATRONIZED – not to
have her whole life, character, plans, intentions, and actions scrutinized, evaluated and judged, just because she’s had the misfortune of falling in love with/being entrapped by a domestic terrorist.¹ To be asked – and then to be reminded – what she did right, how she protected herself, how she protected her children, how she survived, how she prevailed, how she sustained her energy throughout brutal attacks. To be told that it’s not her fault.

5.) TO BE GIVEN HOPE. To be offered connection with other battered women who have
survived and escaped. To know that many, many battered women get away, stay away
and flourish.

6.)  A SEA IN WHICH SHE CAN SWIM SAFELY² – temporary safety in shelter, safety in her
own home, or in new affordable housing.

7.) TO BE SURROUNDED BY PEOPLE WHO “get it” – loving family and friends, co-workers, neighbors, colleagues, bosses, health care professionals, law enforcement folk, school and day care personnel – people who understand that:  “just leaving” is difficult under the best of circumstances, but almost impossible when batterers stalk, harass, gain access to their victim through custody and visitation of their children; that the batterers’ “problem” is not poor impulse control, or a tortured childhood, but “his sense of entitlement to the life, services, affection, undivided attention and loyalty of his victim”;³ and that battering is not impulsive, but instrumental – that he doesn’t have poor impulse control, a temper problem, a short fuse, an explosive personality, but that he has carefully planned the abuse to get what he wants or to punish her for breaking his rules.

“just leaving” is difficult under the best of circumstances, but almost impossible when batterers stalk, harass, gain access to their victim through custody and visitation of their children; that the batterers’ “problem” is not poor impulse control, or a tortured childhood, but “his sense of entitlement to the life, services, affection, undivided attention and loyalty of his victim”;³ and that battering is not

“I would have put emotional support at the top of the list because without it all other support is ineffective. If I didn’t believe I could leave, cope, stay away, survive, then I wouldn’t have even tried. In those crucial first days, weeks, months, years, it is vital that others believe in us because we don’t believe in ourselves. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t conscious of other needs. I was and that’s what terrified me. What if my kids went hungry? What if we didn’t have a roof over our heads? What if he was right that I was a complete f*&^#p and the source of everyone’s problems? What if the court gave them to him because I messed everything up? What if he killed me and they were left behind to be raised by him? What I needed more than anything was a safe place, a cocoon, to live in, to nestle in until my soul wasn’t so tired, until the numbness wore off and I could think again. A place without time limits because if I knew those time limits were in place, I couldn’t have rested, would have worried the whole time. I know that isn’t likely to happen for anyone but that’s what I needed.” Loretta Kemsley, a writer who uses her skills to give voice to all those not yet able to speak out.

9.) TO BE ABLE TO PARTICIPATE IN HER COMMUNITY – community of faith, culture, education, family, workplace, without interference and harassment from the batterer⁵ including the batterer⁶, spreading careful lies and half truths about her character, fidelity, mental health, use of alcohol and other drugs, violence and parenting. This is particularly important for survivors from small closed communities – minority faiths, military bases, reservations, immigrant communities, lesbian or gay male community, deaf community -
communities that provide substantial economic, emotional and survival support to its members.⁷

10.) TO BE GIVEN ACCURATE, UPDATED, ENERGETIC, CONCRETE INFORMATION about the dynamics of domestic violence, the opportunities for help in her community, the actual practices that occur among police, courts, etc. without thought of the political ramification. To be told the truth — that the system doesn’t always work, that in some places it rarely works, and it’s not her fault.

11.) TO BE OFFERED INFORMATION about sexism, about how women are routinely degraded and bought and sold, about how her experience is part of a world wide system to keep women under control, that the tactics of the batterer are commonly used by
assailants throughout the world, and by those who abuse power over others.

12.)  ACCESS TO HIGH QUALITY, AFFORDABLE LEGAL REPRESENTATION – for custody, visitation, divorce, and advice and assistance in criminal matters.

13.)  ACCESS TO ADVOCACY – high quality, ferocious, respectful, culturally sensitive advocacy – the kind that makes you feel that you always have someone on your side. Someone to stand up for her, fight for her and believe in her.

14.) TO BE ABLE TO CALL FOR HELP AND GET IT. When she calls the police, goes to
court, tells her doctor, contacts child welfare, in other words, interacts with systems set
up to enhance her safety she needs a helpful response. She needs not to be punished
for seeking help.

15.) A CHANCE FOR (ECONOMIC) SURVIVAL – help with credit repair, money, housing, education and employment opportunities, child care, transportation, quality medical care, dental and eye coverage – as well as access to mental health and substance abuse services when needed.

© April, 2004. Susan McGee. SusanGSMcGee@aol.com With many thanks to the 5rs, especially Gale Martin, Cheryl Soehl, Loretta Kemsley, Vietta Helmle, Linda Leavitt, Lydia Walker, Rose Garrity, and Janyse Ashley for thoughts and inspiration. Feel free to reproduce, send around, and post this article for all educational, nonprofit, and hellraising purposes. Please cite me as the author and do not change without permission.

Technorati Tags: WOMAN,NEEDS,Susan,McGee,VALIDATION,belief,malice,terrorism,SUPPORT,COMFORT,RESPITE,human,life,plans,actions,misfortune,terrorist,children,energy,GIVEN,HOPE,connection,SWIM,PEOPLE,friends,workers,colleagues,health,personnel,victim,custody,impulse,entitlement,services,affection,attention,rules,kids,roof,problems,soul,Loretta,Kemsley,writer,abduction,courts,threats,violence,alienation,welfare,protection,animals,ABLE,PARTICIPATE,faith,culture,education,workplace,interference,harassment,lies,reservations,immigrant,male,survival,ACCURATE,ENERGETIC,CONCRETE,INFORMATION,ramification,truth,system,places,sexism,world,HIGH,AFFORDABLE,LEGAL,REPRESENTATION,advice,assistance,ADVOCACY,CALL,HELP,doctor,contacts,words,response,CHANCE,ECONOMIC,money,employment,transportation,coverage,substance,movement,liberation,Taliban,Schechter,workshop,Barbara,Hart,attorney,article,Enforcement,Rule,Compliance,Resistance,Humane,Prior,Conversation,allies,discrimination,injustice,April,SusanGSMcGee,Gale,Martin,Cheryl,Soehl,Vietta,Helmle,Linda,Leavitt,Lydia,Walker,Janyse,Ashley,inspiration,Feel,author,permission,intentions,skills,tales,truths,faiths,bases,members,assailants,systems,purposes,batterer,herself,women,batterers,visitation,doesn,didn,wasn,pets,survivors

Battered Women, Abused Children, and Child Custody:
A National Crisis

The Seventh Annual Battered Mothers Custody Conference
BMCC VII:  Now that we know, what are we doing about it?
Friday January 8th – Sunday 10th, 2010, Albany, New York
Holiday Inn Turf, 205 Wolf Road, Albany, NY
Make reservations early to get the $99 Conference Rate

Online Registration

2010 Announcement

Brochure and Mail-In Registration

Schedule

Contribute a Panel to the
"Children Taken by the Family Courts" Quilt

Center for Judicial Excellence Film:
Family Court Crisis

The Conference in PBS’ 2005 Documentary Film:
Breaking the Silence, Children’s Stories

About the Conference

This is Really Hard to Believe

Opinion

Written by Barry Nolan

Thursday, 15 January 2009 09:14

This is really hard to believe. I am sitting in a room filled with women who were beaten, and violated in terrible ways. The room is not in Bosnia, or some far flung third-world hell-hole. I am in a function room in a hotel in Albany at the Battered Mothers Custody Conference. [1]

Many of the women around me are sobbing now, as a child tells her story. “My father beat me” she begins. Well, she is not a child now actually, but she is a child to me. She is a poised, attractive young woman named Jennifer Collins [2] who is a survivor of child abuse and of a Child and Family Court System that betrayed her and her brother, just as it betrays children across this country every day when it orders children to live full time with an abusive parent.

I know you do not believe me. And that makes me realize that this is the experience that these women who surround me have all had. No one believes them. No one believes this can happen. [3] But it does. Sometimes this happens despite voluminous evidence, eyewitnesses and medical records that the child has been beaten, even raped and sodomized by a parent seeking custody. Sometimes the courts do this even if the parent seeking custody has been convicted of, or admitted to domestic violence or sexual assault.  I know you don’t believe me. But you would believe Jennifer if you were here.

It is a strange world in Child and Family court. For instance, even as much energy in the wider world goes into efforts to make certain that sex offenders have no access to children, that they can’t live near a school and walk near a playground, in this odd little corner of our judicial system, courts routinely order children to “reunite” with a sexual predator parent who hurt them. All in the name of “family re-unification”.

I know this sounds impossible. It is against all common sense. This is America after all. But come sit here with me, and listen to this woman/child tell her story. She has “aged out” of the system and is no longer under the thumb of a court that tells her she must be silent.  There is a whole group of courageous kids [4] like Jennifer who are old enough now to tell their story to you, face to face. Jennifer’s story is a pip. And it is pretty typical.

Jennifer tells us about her mother Holly and her dad. He was a batterer who beat Holly. And he beat the children. Jennifer moves her story along quickly to the day when her older brother, then about 4, tried to intervene as dad was beating mom. Dad threw the son against the wall and fractured his skull. There is much more. But I will move the story along quickly to what happens when Holly finally decided to leave this man who beat her and the children.  She fled that terrible house, only to find herself in house of mirrors. The Child and Family Court system.

It is almost as if none of the people who run the Child and Family Court system ever read about or learned a single thing from sad saga of the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal. It’s like they never heard about how victims of physical or sexual abuse are often silenced by their own sense of shame. How their terrible stories can sometimes finally come pouring out in torrents. It may be years later, but it is no less true.  This is not theory. This is fact. We have all watched these sad dramas on the 6 O’clock news.

But, uniquely in Child and Family Court, if allegations of physical or sexual abuse are raised during a divorce where custody is an issue, the allegations are used, not against the perpetrator, but against the victim. There is this invented thing, a bit of junk science called “Parental Alienation Syndrome”. It basically says that any time a woman raises the issue of physical or sexual abuse, of herself or the children in the midst of a custody dispute, she is just trying to make the man look bad and make the children hate him. She must be lying.

Look, I am not a fool. I know people lie. I know some women lie. I know people say awful things about each other in divorces. I have watched Jerry Springer just like you. But I have also watched “To Catch a Predator” and I know “respectable” people can do horrible things.   So, do a thought experiment here. Pretend you are a woman who had finally left an abusive relationship, taking your children with you. If your controlling soon-to-be ex-husband sought to get full custody of the children as one last slap at you, what would you say? OK? Sure, that sounds fair? Fat chance.

The thing a real court would do when this happened is to consider all the evidence, and talk to all the witnesses. Witnesses like the children. They were after all, there when “it” happened. This is what a court would do if a stranger were accused of beating them. Or raping them. But this is not what the Child and Family Court system does.

Jennifer, the survivor, tells us of the day the representative of the court came to take her away from her mother and take her to live at her dad’s. How she clung desperately to her mother’s leg, until they pried her fingers loose, lifted her up, carried her away, and compelled her to live with the man who would beat her. Jennifer tells us how her mother, desperate beyond all measure, kidnapped the children, spirited them away to the Netherlands, where they became the first Americans to be granted asylum. How she lived in a refugee camp, with refugess from Somalia and Sierra Leone, people who had to learn how to use toilets and forks. How this was better than “home”. This was a step up. She was with her mom.

Jennifer lived in exile for 14 years. She finally “aged out”. The court has no jurisdiction now. And so Jennifer had the freedom to come home, to America, to this room where I sit, surrounded by women who are now weeping with joy and cheering for Jennifer’s mom for being so brave and for Jennifer for telling her story to this room full of people who know her story is true. Because the same thing happened to them. So they believe her.

I believe her, too.

References

[1] The Battered Mothers Custody Conference is a national public forum to address the many complex issues facing battered women and their advocates as they strive to protect themselves and their children in and out of family court during divorce, custody, and visitation disputes. 

[2] Small Justice is a video that follows paralegal Diane Hofheimer and her attorney husband as they represent three women, all loving mothers, who have lost custody of their children to men with demonstrated histories of sexual abuse and domestic violence.

[3] The Courageous Kids Network is an organization dedicated to stopping the continuing assault on children’s human right to live free from abuse.

[4] American Children Underground blog chronicles the story of Jennifer Collins, who spent 14 years in hiding with her mother and brother after receiving asylum in the Netherlands.

Discuss this article or to post questions or information for the author, leave a comment on the community site!

About the author:

Barry Nolan is a veteran television journalist and Emmy winning Commentator. He is now a freelance writer and does occasional consulting and writing for Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney.
Nolan has had the chance to cover some of the important stories, the most outstanding personalities and the biggest liars in our time. As a former co-anchor of Hard Copy and later Senior Correspondent for EXTRA!, he has had the chance to cover 9-11, Waco, Oklahoma City and the Republican Convention. He has had the chance to go one on one with some of America’s most gifted story tellers such as O.J. Simpson, James Earl Ray, and that John O’Neil guy from the Swiftboat crowd. He has actually covered stories in Alaska where he thought he got a glimpse of Russia, which officially qualifies him to become Vice President, which he plans to do when he finishes writing his book "Truth Takes a Holiday: Michael Jackson, O.J. Simpson, Bill O’Reilly and Me," a book he has time to write after being fired by Comcast for calling Bill O’Reilly a "mental case."

Contributors: GreyHawk, Roxy, Susie Dow

Photo Credits: drawings ⓒ 2009 American Children Underground

Next >

Last Updated on Thursday, 19 February 2009 11:56

Technorati Tags: Seventh,Annual,Custody,Conference,Women,Children,Child,National,Crisis,BMCC,January,Albany,York,Turf,Wolf,Road,Make,reservations,Rate,Online,Registration,Announcement,Brochure,Mail,Schedule,Contribute,Panel,Taken,Courts,Quilt,Center,Judicial,Excellence,Film,Court,Documentary,Silence,About,Hard,Believe,Opinion,Written,Barry,Nolan,room,Bosnia,world,hell,hotel,Many,father,woman,Jennifer,Collins,System,orders,parent,Sometimes,records,violence,instance,energy,efforts,playground,predator,unification,America,kids,skull,saga,Catholic,Church,scandal,victims,torrents,theory,fact,clock,news,perpetrator,victim,science,Parental,Alienation,Syndrome,midst,Look,Jerry,Springer,Catch,Pretend,relationship,husband,Sure,stranger,Netherlands,Americans,asylum,refugee,Somalia,Sierra,jurisdiction,freedom,forum,Small,Justice,Diane,Hofheimer,attorney,Courageous,Network,organization,human,American,Underground,chronicles,Discuss,article,author,veteran,television,journalist,Emmy,Commentator,writer,Congresswoman,Carolyn,Maloney,Copy,Senior,Correspondent,EXTRA,Waco,Oklahoma,Republican,Convention,Simpson,James,Earl,John,Neil,Swiftboat,Alaska,glimpse,Russia,Vice,President,plans,Truth,Michael,Jackson,Bill,Comcast,GreyHawk,Roxy,Susie,Photo,Last,February,offenders,dramas,allegations,References,histories,tellers,Contributors,survivor,brother,sexual,herself

Tools

MAN UPhttp://www.sfreporter.com/stories/man_up/5234/all/

THERE IS ANOTHER SIDE TO THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE STORY…

By: Corey Pein 12/16/2009

On the face of it, Joshua Gonze is a successful man.

A wealthy, fit and handsome 47-year-old executive at Thornburg Investment Management, Gonze has shared his financial expertise with CNBC, Bloomberg and USA Today. A vocal Libertarian, he campaigned for Ron Paul’s presidential campaign and organized “tea party” protests. A prominent member of Temple Beth Shalom, Gonze has described himself as “a happily married father in Santa Fe.”

Those words may have been true two years ago when they were published. But there is another side to this powerful man’s life, one that casts a troubling light on the views he has espoused.

Publicly, Gonze supports a controversial cause known as “fathers’ rights.” Less known is that for years, Gonze has been able to suppress and counter domestic abuse claims made by two former spouses. His latest ex-wife claims that on Aug. 18, Gonze threatened her with a 10-inch kitchen knife and “waterboarded” their 2-year-old daughter during a dispute over custody. On Dec. 1, in an open courtroom in Santa Fe, Gonze withdrew his own petition, in which he claimed his wife had lied about the incident, and that she was the “abusive” one prone to “hysterical rage.”

Gonze also has been the subject of numerous 911 calls. And a former court officer claims Gonze stalked her after a series of rulings didn’t go his way.

Gonze appears to have avoided the usual consequences of such actions. Although his second wife worked in a local newsroom, the multiple allegations against Gonze never so much as made its police blotter. In fact, Gonze may have influenced the system in his favor by spearheading a law that limits wealthy men’s child support liability.

Gonze was helped in that effort by Albuquerque lawyer David Standridge, who stood beside him in a court at the beginning of the month. Standridge is a theological men’s advocate: He has written in praise of the “warrior life,” defined as “violent men” who rule their households.

Indeed, the men’s movement that Gonze and Standridge belong to is about much more than fathers’ rights. And like many of its members, the movement has a dark side.

The “fathers’ rights” narrative goes something like this: Family courts, cowed by decades of feminist activism, are biased against anyone with a Y chromosome. A few brave men, undaunted by the forces of feminist oppression, are fighting for their rights as fathers—and for the rights of all male-kind.

Courtesy Coordinated Community Response Council

The Santa Fe Coordinated Community Response Council created this ad for placement on city buses.

David River, a divorce mediator and co-facilitator of the Santa Fe Coordinated Community Response Council, an umbrella group for efforts against domestic violence, says the view has some merit. There are men with legitimate grievances, he says—particularly those who wind up in the system following a false accusation, or are punished inappropriately based on outdated laws that fail to consider the context of any given case.

“But then,” River says, the fathers’ rights groups “tend to minimize everything, and fail to see how many women get killed in domestic violence situations. They refuse to give [domestic violence] any legitimacy.”

Most child custody cases, like most lawsuits, settle out of court. Those that don’t can get nasty. Soon-to-be-published research shows that approximately 90 percent of contested cases involve domestic violence or abuse. In these cases, the child becomes a tool through which the abuser, usually the father, continues to exert control over his ex.

How many women get killed? According to the latest Department of Justice figures, 1,640 women were killed by “intimate partners” nationwide in 2007. That’s compared to 700 men. In Santa Fe, 2009 brought a terrible wave of violence against women, including the murder of a pregnant 17-year-old by her angry boyfriend, police say.

Within fathers’ rights circles, such stories are little more than spin by a “party line” feminist press. That charge was made against SFR by one local man, Kenneth Kast, who founded a shelter for men like himself, who were made temporarily homeless and jobless by restraining orders.

To date, Kast’s shelter has served no clients, he says. Starting it was “more of a political statement,” he tells SFR.

“The party line is the woman can say and do anything. If the man reacts physically, he needs to be punished. And she does not need to understand that she played a role in that,” Kast, a retired licensed social worker, says.

Like many in the movement, Kast has been the subject of a restraining order; Kast says his ex-wife’s attorney admitted on appeal that he had not been violent.

While it’s true that every story has at least two sides, for DV deniers, the woman’s side is always a lie.

“In [batterers’] minds, they’re falsely accused. So they take every restraining order that’s ever dropped and say, ‘Look!’” Ben Atherton-Zeman, a victims’ advocate and playwright in Massachusetts, says. “The reality is, having been a court advocate, many judges won’t grant restraining orders when they need to.”

Another movement tactic: countering allegations with their own. It’s a tactic Joshua Gonze used in court against both his former wives.

In 2002, during their divorce and custody battle, Gonze’s first wife—then an aspiring law student—claimed he had stalked her; she told the court that when her neighbors called the police on Gonze after finding him lurking, he claimed to be “just out jogging (in a big storm). Then he ran off.”

Gonze filed counterpetitions. She was the stalker. She was the liar. “There is no violence in me,” Gonze wrote. “I have the ability to verbally express normal, healthy anger as occurs in virtually all marriages.”

In 2006, Gonze, by then remarried and legally barred from approaching his first wife, requested a protection order against his first wife’s boyfriend. The two men had an argument while exchanging custody of Gonze’s then-5-year-old son at Tesuque Village Market. Gonze claimed the other man physically intimidated him, calling him “crazy” and “sick.”

Gonze’s legal disputes with his second wife played out similarly. In a 2009 filing he later withdrew and apologized for, Gonze called his second wife “abusive and frightening” and a “disengaged mother.” He claimed she had “made fake 911 DV calls on two previous occasions” and would “try to neutralize me by filing her own [order of protection].”

These push-back tactics may not have been limited to the women Gonze married.

On July 14, 2008, Margaret Kegel, then the domestic relations hearing officer for the 1st Judicial District Court, filed a report with the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office alleging stalking and harassment by Gonze.

In her statement to police, Kegel said Gonze resented his treatment by the courts dating to his 2002 custody fight; she said Gonze belonged to fathers’ rights groups “with a history of using threats and intimidation.”

Twice in 2008, Kegel told police, Gonze “stared at her with a look of hatred and scared her son” at a day camp their children both attended. She claims he drove by her slowly as she ran errands. Most significantly, she claimed, Gonze attacked her via an anonymous advertisement in The Santa Fe New Mexican.

The May 15, 2007 ad specifically mentioned Kegel under the headline: “Mistreated In Court? Speak Up Now!” It directed complaints about Kegel’s performance to her supervisor, Family Court Judge Raymond Ortiz.

Judge Ortiz personally asked the New Mexican about the 2007 ad, Kegel says, because it could have been construed as having been placed by the court. Ortiz did not return SFR’s messages.

Meanwhile, in 2006 and 2007, the New Mexican ran approximately two dozen letters criticizing the 1st District family court, along with the legal system’s treatment of domestic violence and child support cases. Around that time, Gonze noted in court filings, Kegel’s court granted his first wife a protection order against him. (The order may have been expunged, as district court does not have the file.)

SFR checked the letters and guest columns from the New Mexican from this time period regarding family and domestic violence court. There is strong evidence some of the authors are not real people.

Former Domestic Relations Hearing Officer Margaret Kegel believes Joshua Gonze was behind this ad in The Santa Fe New Mexican as part of a covert campaign against her. The ad was echoed by letters, some of which seem to have pseudonymous authors.

One May 6, 2007 letter almost precisely echoes the anti-Kegel ad. The letter is signed “David Huntington,” Santa Fe. Huntington seems to be a non-person. The Nexis database—a trove of public and commercial data used by debt collectors, private investigators, law firms and newspapers—returns no results for that name within 50 miles of Santa Fe. Google also turns up nothing. There is no such name in a 2006 Santa Fe phone book. No such person ever entered the New Mexico court system.

Gonze’s second ex, Leticia López, tells SFR she suspects Gonze used a number of false names to attack his opponents on the opinion pages of the New Mexican.

While López—who over the years worked at the New Mexican as an assistant news editor and copy editor, among other positions—never personally witnessed her ex writing pseudonymous letters, she tells SFR he implied having done so several times. “I asked him about [the letters] and said, ‘You have to stop; I work at the New Mexican,’ she tells SFR. Gonze promised to stop, she says.

But the letters continued; the questionable ones weren’t retracted, even though several sources tell SFR some New Mexican editors had been made aware that some of them might have been fishy.

SFR’s call to Managing Editor Rob Dean was returned by Public Editor Camille Flores, who oversees letters to the editor.

“During the time these things were being submitted and appeared in the paper, it was not brought to my attention [that some names might be false],” Flores tells SFR. “I never felt there was a campaign going on…I can say we received many letters with much more specific information that we chose not to run.”

Kegel says the letters prompted her District Court supervisors to evaluate her performance. The evaluation, she says, came out fine. But “over the long run,” Kegel says, the chorus of jeers contributed to her forced resignation this year.

“There was a lingering perception by judges and court staff that there was this group of people who were very unhappy with my work, when in fact it was probably one person who took the time to try to cause a problem because he was unhappy with my decision,” Kegel, who is highly regarded by local victims’ advocates, tells SFR.

Kegel also suspects Gonze wrote some of the letters:

“They weren’t signed by anyone who ever appeared before me, and most of them were people who don’t exist at all. The few that were left, it would be hard to tell, because they were names a lot of people might’ve had,” she says.

One such letter, titled “Curb Kegel,” appeared April 8, 2007 under the name “Ron Burman,” Santa Fe. No person by that name turns up in searches of public and court records, including in the domestic violence court. This is the clincher, because “Burman” claimed personal experience with Kegel’s “reign of terror” in the 1st Judicial District. “I saw Kegel ignore proof of abuse by my wife. When I strongly complained about the abuse, Kegel found me guilty of ‘domestic violence’ merely for complaining,” Burman wrote.

On at least two occasions, SFR may also have been duped, despite requiring would-be correspondents to include an address and phone number with their letters. “Your cover story on domestic violence is wrong where it states ‘the vast majority of violent abusers are men,’” one letter began.

The letter, which cited several DV-denier websites mentioned in the New Mexican letters, was signed “Florence Vigil,” for whom there also are no public records.

While SFR cannot verify Kegel or López’ suspicion that Gonze was involved with the bogus letters, Gonze made it known fathers’ rights was an issue to which he was dedicated.

Not long after Gonze publicly inveighed against the plight of wealthy divorced dads, the law was changed in his favor.

In 2007, Gonze and David Standridge formed a nonprofit lobbying group, Families Against Confiscatory Child Support, to oppose “excessive awards.” The same year, Gonze signed a letter to the New Mexican attacking the state’s “insane child support guidelines.” Months prior, he and Standridge had published an op-ed in that paper calling on state lawmakers to fix child support “inequities.” The piece argued that wealthy men were treated unfairly by a system that set no limit to child support for those earning more than $8,300 a month—forcing fathers to pay more than the cost of child rearing. “The excess money could then be used by the mother on luxuries for herself,” Gonze and Standridge wrote.

In 2008, state Rep. Al Park, D-Bernalillo, sponsored and passed a bill that did just as Gonze and Standridge requested: It placed, for the first time, a ceiling on child support payments. (Park did not return messages asking why he sponsored the change.)

Under the new guidelines, the lowest-earning parents (those whose combined income totals $800 a month) must pay 12.5 percent to support one child. The highest earners pay only 9.9 percent on $30,000 a month in income.

In the 2006 petition Gonze filed against his first wife’s boyfriend, he gave his side of a dispute regarding a portion of his $2,054 monthly child support payment. “As the evidence shows,” he wrote, “I am not at all angry about paying child support.”

But by his second wife’s account, Gonze continued to hold a grudge.

“He collects news articles from wire services that report on specific cases of men on the verge of divorce who hurt or killed their children or soon-to-be-exes because they were furious at the prospect of paying child support,” she wrote in her

Aug. 19 protection order petition. “[H]e believes that the men in the news stories were justified…He has told me many times, ‘That’s what happens when you divorce a man and demand too much child support.’”

Before joining Thornburg Investment Management, Joshua Gonze rated oil and gas bonds for Standard & Poor’s in New York, where he was born.

Being part of a movement, Gonze has his supporters. The loudest may be Glenn Sacks, a radio talker turned web publisher and executive director of Fathers & Families, who in 2001 published an article called, “Why I Didn’t Marry a Jewish Woman.”

Why, indeed?

“The reason I lost interest in many Jewish women was the generally contemptuous, belittling, and bigoted attitude that so many of them have towards men,” Sacks explains.

On Sacks’ site, the same attitudes are attributed toward women of all creeds. In 2007, in the midst of Joshua Gonze’s alleged campaign to have Margaret Kegel fired, Sacks called Gonze “one of my most articulate readers.”

Gonze’s short published letter to Sacks prompted a reader to argue for “mandatory Paternal custody…such as what prevailed in most of Christendom until the twentieth century, (when so much else went wrong!!).”

Indeed, there is a throwback religious current running through the movement.

It is exemplified by Gonze’s attorney, David Standridge.

Standridge explains his philosophy of “warrior life” in a magazine published by New Mexico’s Body of Christ in Albuquerque. “Many men today are abdicating their responsibility to be the Godly leader of their families,” Standridge begins. “As a result, many women have taken over the role as the Godly leader of their homes, churches and society as a whole.”

The attorney goes on to praise the virtues of violent men. “Warrior Life is not some touchy feely click [sic], club or organization,” Standridge writes. “Warrior Life is best defined by violent men who take the kingdom of God by force…It is about men who are tired of the perversion, rudeness and slothfulness of [sic] as dictated by today’s culture.”

Standridge did not return a message.

Kathryn Joyce, author of Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, says such rhetoric fits right in with male-dominated Evangelical sects she has studied. This movement’s leaders “make suggestions that women should probably limit how much they speak in mixed company. Most of them emphasize…that wives need to learn how not to push their husband’s buttons,” Joyce tells SFR.

“They won’t come out and defend domestic violence—they’ll say it’s a sin—but they’ll also put equal blame on the wife.”

The fathers’ rights movement doesn’t come out and defend domestic violence either. But its members push back at anyone who calls attention to violence against women and has the statistics to back it up.

Ben Atherton-Zeman, the 43-year-old Massachusetts advocate, joined the feminist movement after learning of a college girlfriend’s history with “a controlling ex.” He later began running into the “abusers’ lobby” at conferences and while lobbying at various statehouses.

Ever since, he has compiled a list of pejoratives the DV deniers have thrown his way, including: hypocrite, liar, bigot, eunuch-type male, man-whore, lemming and “Atherton-Semen.”

Who are these DV deniers?

“I wouldn’t say they are all wife-beaters, but I would guess they’re at least 75 percent of the membership,” Molly Dragiewicz, a Canadian criminologist who studies violence, gender and anti-feminist groups, says. She bases the figure on a Rutgers University professor’s book-length study of the fathers’ rights movement, in which three-quarters of the members interviewed reported being “falsely accused” of violence.

“The other 25 percent,” Dragiewicz says, “are making money off of the wife-beaters or are sympathetic to them.”

Atherton-Zeman once believed the best way to combat misogynist groups was to ignore them. For a while, it seemed to work. “Unfortunately, they’ve gotten better,” he says. “Now they have slick bullet points that sound quite reasonable to your average legislator.”

Indeed, DV deniers share some rhetoric with well-intentioned efforts to encourage non-violent masculinity. They can be hard to tell apart.

Santa Fe “life coach” Ray Lopez runs small groups for men in troubled relationships, in the hopes of introducing “alternatives to violence.” Lopez breaks the ice with his own story, starting with his “dysfunctional alcoholic family, blah blah blah.”

Lopez’ anger reached its peak approximately 18 years ago when he slapped his 3-year-old son. His wife gave him an ultimatum, and he began taking therapy seriously.

He’s familiar with abusers’ excuses, like she slapped me before I punched her. “It’s blatantly not true that women are as violent as men,” Lopez says, referring to a common refrain in the DV denier movement. However—this is where lines blur, and Lopez jokes about getting “into trouble”—he says “women can manipulate much better than men.”

Though not always politically correct, Lopez’ frank approach has likely improved a few lives. He acknowledges that some relationships are unsalvageable because of both parties—a notion that raises a taboo subject.

Some court reformers believe family violence won’t improve without abandoning two cultural assumptions: that marriages should be preserved, and that children benefit from contact with both biological parents.

“One reason the fathers’ rights groups are so effective is they’re tapping into these mainstream ideas that divorce is bad,” Dragiewicz says.

Yet despite claims by fathers’ groups, courts are anything but a tool for female vengeance.

“If you look at patterns, [courts rule] very much in favor of fathers and against mothers,” lawyer Barry Goldstein, co-editor of the forthcoming research compendium “Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody,” tells SFR. (Goldstein provided the earlier statistic about domestic abuse in disputed custody cases.)

Family court codes and procedures do not reflect advances in the social sciences, he says.

“Thirty years ago, the focus was on physical abuse. What we understand now is that domestic violence is a tactic men use to maintain control, to continue to make the major decisions in the relationship. Most of the time it’s not physical,” Goldstein says. “It can be a raised eyebrow. It can be economic.”

Most people would agree the legal system has overreached if a raised eyebrow constitutes a crime. But that is not Goldstein’s argument. Rather, he says, courts misunderstand the role of violence and, just as importantly, the implied threat of violence in abusive relationships. As a result, police, prosecutors and judges don’t know how to distinguish a one-time mistake from an escalating situation.

“In most [dangerous] cases, there’s something physical, but he doesn’t need to keep doing it, because she knows what he’s capable of. The courts don’t see that,” Goldstein says.

“Fathers’ rights” advocate Glenn Sacks is a fan of Joshua Gonze, and vice versa. Sacks is the listed contact for an anti-child-support site founded by Gonze.

Santa Fe may have a bigger problem. The courts never see what the police don’t report.

When Leticia López called 911 on Aug. 18, two Santa Fe Police Department officers came to her home. It was the fourth time SFPD had responded to an incident involving her and Gonze. The Aug. 18 report, by Officer David Webb Jr., describes a “domestic disturbance” in which “not battery, nor assault took place.”

Webb’s description doesn’t jibe with the petition López filed the next day, in which she described being threatened with a knife and witnessing potential abuse of a child.

“They didn’t believe anything I said,” López tells SFR. She claims Gonze ran down the block from their home to meet and speak with police before they interviewed her—by which point, they’d been convinced her story was unreliable.

López calls the officers’ conduct “extremely inappropriate,” for instance: “They said I shouldn’t be fighting over 50-50 custody,” she says. (It wasn’t Webb who criticized her parenting decisions, she says, but another officer whose identity remains unknown.)

Officer Webb did not return a message.

A few months later, inside a courtroom on a cold December morning, López sits only feet away from Gonze, but never meets his eye.

He has agreed to a four-year restraining order, which bars him from coming within 50 yards of her in public, or from buying a firearm. Gonze also agreed to an apology.

“I recognize that my domestic violence petition harmed Leticia and [our daughter],” Gonze says, reading the prepared statement. “I acknowledge Leticia is a good mother and loves [our daughter].”

The hearing officer asks if the statement was coerced.

Gonze hesitates. “No,” he says finally.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“Yes,” Gonze says. “I owe Leticia an apology for everything that happened.”

López tells SFR she hopes Gonze will change his ways. “I know this marriage has been a nightmare,” she says. “Josh has begun the process of self-examination. He’s begun to apologize and make amends. He has a lot of work to do.”

Approached by SFR after the hearing, Gonze says he settled the dispute for the sake of his daughter. He declines to elaborate but says, “Since you didn’t identify yourself as a reporter, I don’t think you should say anything in the paper about my case.”

SFR’s reporter did identify himself. Gonze did not return subsequent email and phone messages seeking comment on the events described in this article.  SFR

Technorati Tags: Rights,ANOTHER,SIDE,DOMESTIC,VIOLENCE,STORY,Corey,Pein,Joshua,Gonze,Thornburg,Investment,Management,expertise,CNBC,Bloomberg,Libertarian,Paul,member,Temple,Beth,Shalom,father,Santa,words,life,supports,wife,daughter,custody,incident,subject,officer,series,consequences,actions,Although,fact,system,effort,Albuquerque,lawyer,David,Standridge,warrior,movement,narrative,courts,chromosome,forces,oppression,male,Courtesy,Response,Council,placement,River,mediator,facilitator,umbrella,efforts,accusation,context,legitimacy,Most,cases,Soon,tool,abuser,Department,Justice,figures,partners,Within,Kenneth,Kast,orders,clients,statement,woman,needs,role,worker,attorney,Look,Atherton,Zeman,victims,Massachusetts,judges,tactic,student,stalker,liar,protection,argument,Tesuque,Village,Market,Margaret,Kegel,Judicial,District,Court,Sheriff,Office,harassment,treatment,history,threats,intimidation,Twice,children,errands,advertisement,Mexican,Speak,performance,supervisor,Judge,Raymond,Ortiz,messages,Around,guest,period,Former,Relations,letter,Huntington,person,Nexis,database,data,debt,newspapers,results,Google,Mexico,Leticia,López,opinion,news,times,Editor,Dean,Public,Camille,Flores,paper,attention,evaluation,resignation,perception,decision,Curb,April,Burman,records,terror,correspondents,Florence,Vigil,suspicion,Against,Confiscatory,Child,Support,guidelines,Months,piece,cost,money,Park,Bernalillo,payments,Under,income,portion,payment,account,wire,services,verge,Standard,Poor,York,supporters,Glenn,radio,talker,director,article,Didn,Marry,Jewish,attitude,midst,reader,Paternal,Christendom,philosophy,magazine,Body,Christ,Many,leader,result,virtues,organization,kingdom,perversion,culture,message,Kathryn,Joyce,author,Quiverfull,Inside,Christian,Patriarchy,rhetoric,fits,Evangelical,leaders,husband,statistics,college,hypocrite,bigot,Semen,membership,Dragiewicz,Canadian,gender,Rutgers,professor,length,bullet,legislator,Lopez,relationships,ultimatum,therapy,Though,notion,Some,ideas,vengeance,Barry,Goldstein,Abuse,statistic,procedures,relationship,crime,Rather,threat,situation,Police,SFPD,Webb,disturbance,battery,description,jibe,instance,December,firearm,apology,marriage,Josh,self,examination,amends,reporter,events,Fathers,spouses,allegations,members,grievances,situations,lawsuits,marriages,complaints,columns,authors,collectors,opponents,supervisors,lawmakers,luxuries,articles,attitudes,readers,sects,suggestions,conferences,bases,assumptions,codes,decisions,officers,feet,yards,himself,courtroom,month,feminist,women,boyfriend,deniers,dozen,filings,pseudonymous,trove,investigators,miles,ones,weren,editors,clincher,abusers,denier,websites,whom,dads,nonprofit,insane,herself,parents,earners,exes,loudest,publisher,towards,twentieth,century,throwback,churches,doesn,girlfriend,statehouses,wouldn,beaters,criminologist,three,misogynist,gotten,dysfunctional,blah,unsalvageable,reformers,compendium,sciences,prosecutors,versa,fourth,shouldn,wasn,four,sake

The blood money trail in the name of “Responsible Fatherhood Initiatives”. Pedophiles, abusers and felons getting sole custody; with Govt.$$

MamaLiberty’s Weblog

BADASS BLOGGER

FATHER HOOD

by mamaliberty

Pedophiles, abusers and felons getting sole custody,because everyone in Family Court gets a suckle from the teat of the grants. I’ve followed the blood money trail in the name of “Responsible Fatherhood Initiatives”.

Access and Visitation Grants:

Federal Allocation and State Match

Number of parents that received each service type and the number of States that provided these services in FY 2006

State	Federal Allocation	State Match	Total Funding
Alabama	$142,610	$15,846	$158,456
Alaska	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Arizona	$179,474	$19,942	$199,415
Arkansas	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
California	$988,710	$109,857	$1,098,567
Colorado	$130,679	$14,520	$145,199
Connecticut	$101,505	$11,278	$112,783
Delaware	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
District of Columbia	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Florida	$519,757	$57,751	$577,508
Georgia	$272,041	$30,227	$302,267
Guam	$100,000	$0	$100,000
Hawaii	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Idaho	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Illinois	$329,141	$36,571	$365,712
Indiana	$164,289	$18,254	$182,544
Iowa	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Kansas	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Kentucky	$115,835	$12,871	$128,706
Louisiana	$175,073	$19,453	$194,525
Maine	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Maryland	$176,152	$19,572	$195,724
Massachusetts	$171,937	$19,104	$191,041
Michigan	$289,707	$32,190	$321,897
Minnesota	$123,675	$13,742	$137,417
Mississippi	$113,215	$12,579	$125,795
Missouri	$171,130	$19,014	$190,144
Montana	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Nebraska	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Nevada	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
New Hampshire	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
New Jersey	$217,628	$24,181	$241,809
New Mexico	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
New York	$605,368	$67,263	$672,631
North Carolina	$272,566	$30,285	$302,851
North Dakota	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Ohio	$334,160	$37,129	$371,288
Oklahoma	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Oregon	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Pennsylvania	$341,055	$37,895	$378,950
Puerto Rico	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Rhode Island	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
South Carolina	$142,481	$15,831	$158,312
South Dakota	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Tennessee	$178,061	$19,785	$197,845
Texas	$646,627	$71,847	$718,474
Utah	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Vermont	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Virgin Islands	$100,000	$0	$100,000
Virginia	$192,500	$21,389	$213,889
Washington	$171,388	$19,043	$190,431
West Virginia	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Wisconsin	$133,236	$14,804	$148,040
Wyoming	$100,000	$11,111	$111,111
Total	$10,000,000	$1,088,889	$11,088,888

Posted in activism | Tagged abused children, bad fathers, battered women,corruption, court whores, CPS, custody, cyber stalking, domestic abuse, family court,family court corruption, government corruption, Judges, maternal deprivation,misogynists, mothers, pedophiles, protective parent, restraining orders, violence against women | 1 Comment

Technorati Tags:money,Responsible,Pedophiles,custody,Govt,Weblog,BADASS,BLOGGER,FATHER,June,Court,Visitation,Federal,Allocation,State,Match,Number,services,Total,Alabama,Alaska,Arizona,Arkansas,California,Colorado,Connecticut,Delaware,District,Columbia,Florida,Georgia,Guam,Hawaii,Idaho,Illinois,Indiana,Iowa,Kansas,Kentucky,Louisiana,Maine,Maryland,Massachusetts,Michigan,Minnesota,Mississippi,Missouri,Montana,Nebraska,Nevada,Hampshire,Jersey,Mexico,York,North,Carolina,Dakota,Ohio,Oklahoma,Oregon,Pennsylvania,Puerto,Rico,Rhode,Island,South,Tennessee,Texas,Utah,Vermont,Virgin,Virginia,Washington,West,Wisconsin,children,corruption,government,Judges,deprivation,parent,orders,violence,Comment,felons,Islands,fathers,blood,abusers,womenNote: Cross posted from [wp angelfury] Family ‘Lawless’ Court Whores.

Domestic violence is on the rise in Shawnee County

How many must die”

By Jessica Drew

Domestic violence on the rise

Domestic violence on the rise in Shawnee County.

"I remember curling up in a ball to protect her from the kicks," domestic violence survivor, Claudine Dombrowski, described.

Claudine Dombrowski is a survivor to domestic violence, a cycle she went back to many times. "I had a choice I could see my daughter or I could never see her again. The abuser had complete control, so I got my daughter back and went back to him."

Going back to an abusive relationship is a problem District Attorney Chad Taylor said his office sees quite often. "We see it everyday, and it’s just a matter of the psychology of the cycle of abuse," Taylor said.

The number of cases coming across Taylor’s desk is growing. "Our year to date projections for 2009 total is going to be an increase of about 80 percent for the domestic battery cases that we filed," Taylor said.

Claudine fights to help women like herself who have fallen in the hands of abuse. "This was the crow bar, and then I was beaten and raped," Dombrowski said.

She said she never reported her beatings until after her daughter was born.

Taylor said it happens often, "It goes from bruises to hospitalization, to like we said this is all about homicide prevention."

Claudine said even if you haven’t been a victim, you probably know someone who has and you can help them. "Don’t think it’s you…get rid of the scarlet letter of shame, it’s the most important thing."

Taylor wants to show there’s help out there for victims. "Making this a priority and letting people know that this will not be tolerated in our community," Taylor said.

Taylor’s office gave us statisitics on Domestic Violence in 2008 the DA’s office received 1267 cases, out of those 508 were filed. Starting from January 1st until October 16, 2009 there have been 1347 cases received, and out of those 849 cases have been filed.

One Domestic Battery charges, in 2008 there were 723 received and 246 filed for court. The projections for this year are 784 received and 443 filed, meaning an eighty percent increase on Domestic Battery.

Technorati Tags: Domestic,violence,Shawnee,Survivor,Claudine,Dombrowski,Chad,Taylor,Interview,Jessica,ball,cycle,times,daughter,abuser,relationship,District,Attorney,office,cases,desk,battery,homicide,prevention,haven,victim,letter,victims,January,October,projections

"Baby Killer" dad sentenced to 10 years in prison will only serve 5 (Saskatchewan, Canada) from the blog Dastardly Dads

Dad JUSTIN COURTNEY pleaded guilty in the manslaughter death of his 10-month-old daughter back in May 2007 (the baby died from a fractured skull). He received 10 years in prison for that act. But now that sentence is being reduced to 5 years, despite an apparent "lack of remorse" on Dad’s part. Yup, that’s Canada. Real tough on child abusers and child killers.

http://www.newstalk650.com/story/20091214/26746

Ten Years For Baby Killer

Justin James Courtney will serve five years

By Sarah Mills

Posted December 14, 2009 – 4:14pm

A ten year sentence for a man who killed his own baby. Justin Courtney pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of his 10 month old daughter in May 2007.

A deplorable and unthinkable act according to the sentencing judge. But Justin Courtney will only serve five years of the ten year sentence because of time already served. Crown lawyer Mitch Crumley believes it was an appropriate sentence given the facts of the case.

"The nature of the offense, the background of the offender, the lack of remorse."

But Edwin Kennedy, Courtney’s father, believes, despite his son’s guilty plea, he didn’t act alone.

"They (he and his partner) were together, and my son wasn’t home all night?"

A pathologist stated the child must have received many forceful impacts to the head to cause the skull fractures that led to her death.

Posted by silverside at 3:06 PM

Labels: Canada, child death, head injury, murder

Technorati Tags: Baby,Killer,prison,Saskatchewan,Canada,Dads,JUSTIN,COURTNEY,manslaughter,death,daughter,skull,remorse,Real,James,Sarah,December,Crown,lawyer,Mitch,Crumley,nature,background,offender,Edwin,Kennedy,father,plea,injury,killers,impacts,month,five

A DIR is a form filled out by Police when they respond to a domestic violence call involving  members of the same family or household and persons who are or have been involved in an intimate relationship. A copy of the DIR is given to the individual who called the Police. A DIR is filed even if an arrest is not made.

The Police will identify each party to the incident either as the Victim and Suspect or as Party 1 and Party 2. The Police will want the Victim’s contact information. The form will detail any injuries sustained by the Victim.

As part of the investigation the Police will ask a series of questions to the Victim about the Suspect.  This would include the following:

• Is there a prior Domestic Violence (“DV”) History?
• Is there a prior DV Police Report?
• Is the Victim fearful?
• Does the suspect have access to weapons?
• Does the suspect have drug and alcohol history?
• Has the suspect made any suicide threats?
• Is the suspect on probation/parole?

The Police will also want to know about “associated persons” which is anyone who was present during an incident or  has knowledge of the history between the two individuals.

The DIR will include the following info:

• a Victims Rights Notice which explains a victims legal rights, and how a victim can find local domestic violence services
• the responding police officers name and badge numbers so that a victim can reach out to them if they have questions or if the Victim wants to add information to the Police  report
• A statement by the victim of what happened in his or her own words. This statement can be made by the Victim or the Police. If this statement is to be used as  a supporting deposition/corroborating affidavit to prosecute an individual it has to be signed by the Victim (the deponent.) Further, all of the elements of the crime must be made out in non-hearsay factual allegations.

The DIR is an official report of the incident and can be used in Family Court or Criminal/Supreme Court.

 Lambada 2 by DV

2009 (18 tracks, 1:06:02)

world

http://www.thetimesnews.com/news/department-30295-person-sheriff.html

December 11, 2009 7:14 PM
Times-News

A husband and wife are dead in what the Alamance County Sheriff’s Department says appears to be a murder-suicide.

Sheriff’s department spokesman Randy Jones said investigators believe Stephen Derick McPherson fatally shot his wife, Janet M. McPherson, at the couple’s home at 3258 Rogers Road, Graham. Stephen McPherson was declared dead when his body arrived at Alamance Regional Medical Center.

Jones said early Friday night the belief Stephen McPherson shot his wife and then himself is based on evidence from the first stages of the investigation. He said investigators haven’t completely ruled out other scenarios. Two guns were found in the home. One was near Stephen McPherson’s body. Jones wasn’t sure where the other gun was found or whether both had been fired.

The sheriff’s department went to the house following a 911 call about 12:40 p.m. Friday. The phone line remained open and emergency communications workers thought they heard gunshots.

Jones said he believed Janet McPherson placed the 911 call, though he said he had not heard the tape of the call.

Sheriff’s deputies forced their way into the home and found Janet McPherson dead in the living room. Stephen McPherson was found in a bathroom with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Jones said it’s uncertain if Janet McPherson was shot more than once. While investigators believe Stephen McPherson shot himself, he said, that hasn’t been medically confirmed.

Janet McPherson was 42. Stephen McPherson was 36. Jones said the investigation’s early stages indicated they were estranged. A temporary domestic violence protective order had been issued against Stephen McPherson, Jones said, though a later court order allowed contact between them based on their mutual consent.

The sheriff’s department has asked the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation for help, Jones said, and the SBI will have primary responsibility for the investigation as it continues.

Jones said the couple has at least one child. No one besides Janet and Stephen McPherson was at home when the shootings happened, he said.

Look at what NDTV has to say:

1. 498A is a law through which all concerned are making money ..

2. ”the police is making money, the lawyers are making money, the judges are making money”

3. The police do not conduct any investigation at all ..”not even an iota of it”. They just make the arrest.

4. DV act kicks the husband out of his own house.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkKTveOYGQg

http://www.batteredmotherscustodyconference.org/

The Seventh Annual Battered Mothers Custody Conference:

"Now that we know, what are we doing about it?"

Friday January 8th – Sunday 10th, 2010

Holiday Inn Turf, 205 Wolf Road, Albany, NY

Make reservations early to get the $99 Conference Rate

Online Registration

2010 Announcement, Brochure, and Mail-In Registration

The Conference in PBS’ Documentary Film: Breaking the Silence, Children’s Stories

Center for Judicial Excellence Film: Family Court Crisis

   About the Conference

2009 Conference – BMCC VI:  SOLUTIONS

Announcement and General Information

Brochure Presenters Schedule Co-Sponsors

Two journalists comment on the 2009 conference:

___
Holly Ann Collins sought asylum for her children and herself in the Netherlands to escape abuse; her case has recently received national attention. Holly’s daughter Jennifer, now 23, is unabashedly demanding answers from America’s family courts.  Jennifer has posted extensive information, court documents, and videos online atChildrenUnderground.;She presented her family’s story at the 2009 conference.

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

The Conference includes presentations, round-table discussions, and question & answer sessions with nationally distinguished
professionals whose work is focused on resolving the complex issues facing battered women as they strive to protect themselves
and their children in and out of court during custody and visitation disputes.  It is open to lay persons and of special interest to
advocates, social workers, psychologists, attorneys, judges, legal personnel, and others involved in the issue of battered women’s
and abused children’s legal and civil rights being routinely violated by family courts, DSS, and other government systems.

Battered Women, Abused Children, and Child Custody: A National Crisis is not funded and has no paid staff.
It has been, from its inception, a completely volunteer-driven, self-sustaining, grassroots phenomenon,
and is entirely the unpaid work product of its creators and presenters.
The Conference is neither financially supported by,
nor officially affiliated with,
any one particular group,

organization,

gender-based ideology,

or political agenda.

More about the Conference
BACK TO TOP

Please use your browser’s "refresh" function, as all pages are updated frequently.   This site is best viewed with Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher with your monitor set
to 1024 x 728 resolution.  Set your browser text size set to "medium" (using the View function in Internet Explorer). 
DISCLAIMERS AND TERMS OF USE- Information on this site or linked to this site is NOT LEGAL ADVICE…  more
Copyright ©2002-2010 Liliane Heller Miller, site concept, content, design, and graphics.  All Rights Reserved.

Technorati Tags: Seventh,Annual,Custody,Conference,January,Turf,Wolf,Road,Albany,Make,reservations,Rate,Online,Registration,Announcement,Brochure,Mail,Documentary,Film,Silence,Children,Center,Judicial,Excellence,Court,Crisis,About,BMCC,General,Information,Presenters,Schedule,journalists,Commentary,Garland,Waller,plans,determination,event,article,Hard,Believe,Opinion,Barry,Nolan,room,Bosnia,world,hell,Collins,asylum,Netherlands,attention,daughter,Jennifer,America,courts,documents,ChildrenUnderground,discussions,persons,workers,judges,personnel,rights,government,Women,Child,National,inception,volunteer,self,grassroots,phenomenon,product,organization,gender,ideology,agenda,BACK,Internet,Explorer,text,size,View,DISCLAIMERS,TERMS,LEGAL,ADVICE,Liliane,Heller,Miller,concept,SOLUTIONS,goals,presentations,sessions,systems,creators,browser

http://www.dailyastorian.info/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=398&ArticleID=66404

Woman stabbed to death
Warrenton house fire ruled a murder-suicide; husband kills wife, shoots himself

By SANDRA SWAIN
The Daily Astorian

WARRENTON – The fire in Warrenton last week in which a couple died has been ruled a murder-suicide.

Autopsy results determined that Karen DeWide, 69, died Wednesday from loss of blood from a knife wound to her throat, according to Clatsop County Chief Deputy District Attorney Ron Brown.

He said she was stabbed by her husband, Joseph DeWilde, 73, who started the house on fire and then committed suicide. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Autopsies were conducted by the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Portland. The results were released Friday.

The fire was reported at 4:21 a.m. Wednesday, when a passerby spotted smoke coming from the one-story wood fram house at 242 N.W. First Ave.

Warrenton firefighters discovered the bodies after they put out the blaze.

Warrenton Police Officer Len Mossman was the lead investigator. The Clatsop County Major Crime Team was called in to assist Warrenton police because the small department has limited resources.

Court records show Karen DeWilde filed for divorce last month.

I didn’t have enough room in my freezer for all my food so I left the ice cream outside. I’m going to take it,  a pound of brown sugar, and a pound of butter then mix it into a hot-buttered rum batter. YUM! I will take some to The Boy in a few days.

Must remember to take migraine pills to the coast. I wonder if I should try and pay 941’s before I leave?

Yesterday, four police officers from Lakewood, Washington were memorialized. They were gunned down in a coffee shop by a guy Mike Huckabee released upon us. Thanks Mike, stellar move wing-nut.

I hate it because although I believe what happened was wrong on SO many levels, I also have strong feelings about how this is all playing out, so I am staying pretty quiet on it.

I will say, I remember Crystal Brame Judson, and David Brame, Sr.