Welcome back to the real world, we are getting screwed.

[tulip]

DH finally got a call back from his atty. He's been trying to reach him since Dec 24. We e-mailed him over the weekend with all the details of what's been happening. He never got the email. He also told dh that he will not be able to check it until he goes home, because his email at the office is screwed up.

He said there is nothing he can do about her taking the kids w/o his permission. What bm did was very devious, and underhanded, but it's done. He will send a letter to the judge, informing her what happened, and try to get the modification approved by her that was to be filed instead of the one from Sept. What good will that do? She has already violated it in more than one way. She has no intention of going to mediation, and she knew she was violating the order when she took the kids to AK, but didn't care.

Atty said it would be ludicrous to file for sole custody, because he already agreed to joint custody, so if he goes back on that, he would be back where he started.

I'm thinking maybe dh needs to get a different atty.

BM is very scared right now, thinking she might go to jail for this. When she comes back and finds out she is going to get away with this, she will never stop doing this kind of crap.

[jurroppi1]

The way I see it is you have two options, neither of which are probably going to do much good unless the court puts some teeth behind their orders.

1) You could file criminal charges against the ex for parental interference. Most likely nothing will come of that after she returns with the children, because she will have returned with them, however, if her return is more than 48 hours after the time she took them, then perhaps you may yet be able to pursue this option. use the following link to read up on the statute: [A HREF=http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/stats/609/26.html" Target="new]MN Statutes, 609.26 Criminal Code - Depriving another of custodial or parental rights[/A]

2) The other option is to file contempt charges against her for denial of parenting time, and for absconding with the children out of the state during your court ordered parenting time. The plain truth of this option, is that most likely the court won't do anything substantial to sanction her, they'll most likely tell her not to do it again, then wash their hands of the whole situation. Also, most family court dockets are so overloaded, you might not get a hearing for several months, and by that time, what will it really matter to her? She got away with this already, in a few months, what's a few days of make up parenting time to her? You can't make up lost holiday visitation, especially time lost over Christmas. She knows this, and is basically flouting a court order because she already knows the court isn't going to do anything meaningful about the issue anyhow.

Get enough contempt filings in your court file, and they may start to take it seriously, but by then it's generally too late anyhow.

This is basically a lose-lose situation, because you'll spend all the money in court costs to get next to nothing done, and she'll be that much happier knowing you wasted your time and money on a kangaroo court proceeding. Of course I'm pretty damned cynnical when it comes to the court system, and you *could* end up having better luck, but I have to err on the side of caution, and that means being extremely cynnical about it, and generally that leads me to the reality of what generally happens in MN courts when going up against the mommy bias.

[tulip]

Yeah, I guess that's why our atty doesn't want to do anything. He did file a motion to get the correct order signed, instead of the one she filed "fraudulently". Hopefully that will be done right away, so dh can get his cs reviewed. He also asked for make-up time next Xmas (big deal) and for her to pay atty fees in the amount of $1000. That hearing isn't until April.

When she was in AK, she was very scared that she was going to be arrested when she got back, so she was thinking she would move up there for a couple years, give dh custody of the kids while she was gone, since she probably thought, like us at the time, she would lose custody anyway. She has said this before, so we didn't want to get too excited about it, but this time we thought she might actually do it. Her "fiance" was going to Iraq for a year and a half, so if she's losing custody anyway, she has nothing to stay here for. Well,  now it seems he didn't go. (Does anyone know how to find out if he was dishonorably discharged for failing a drug test?)

I have decided it's too much stress. I want to quit fighting. He just gained a whole lot by getting joint custody. She can't move away with the kids. His cs will get modified to reflect the amount of time he is supporting the kids. I think we should be happy with what we got and not risk losing it.