I need my son!

[xixao]

Hi,

I'm new to these forums, and have a situation I'm hoping to find some help in.

I was with a girl for 4 years, and we were engaged to be married for a year. We have a 16-month-old son.

November 8th, 2006, she provoked a fight, in which she threatened me with custody, and locked herself in the bathroom with my son. She was acting crazy, and my son was screaming.

I picked the lock to the bathroom, to find her pressing him against the shower door. I told her to put him down several times, and she refused. I grabbed the arm closest to me (her right arm), and took him from her. She then used him to pull me into her knee, which she planted firmly in my groin.

After she refused to release us, I slapped her, and she ran to the police to file A&B charges against me. She produced bruises on her LEFT arm, which had not been touched during this incident. She also claimed that I had BOTH arms twisted behind her back, and threw her to the floor. According to her statement, she somehow kept my son in her arms through all of this...

Her statement has changed 3 times since the incident... One story was given in the police report, another was given on the PPO, and a third was posted online to her friends.

I was arrested and spent that night in jail. The court released me on Personal Bond, preventing me from returning to my house or having any contact with her. She then proceeded to dictate a parenting schedule of Tues & Thurs from 6p-8p, and 4 hours on the weekend.

There is a trial set for Feb 26th, at my request. A temporary order was just signed, giving me every other weekend from 5p Friday to 5p Sunday. It also ordered me to pay $664/month child support, and gave her family first rights to watching my son when she is in school or work, against my wishes to be awarded those rights.

She has a history of mental instability, witnessed by people in my family and who have lived with us in the past. The law doesn't seem to care. She has complete favor and I, being the father, am continually being subjected to the gender bias we've all come to know and love...

I need my son. She's far too unstable to properly care for him. She never even used to seem interested in caring for him. She would sleep until late hours in the afternoon, dropping brownies in his crib when he woke up, and going back to bed. I took care of everything.

She has recently been laid off from her job at GM, and has been attending classes to obtain a Class-A CDL to start working as a commercial truck driver. During this time, my son has been under the care of her homosexual dad and his partner, both HIV-positive.

We live in Michigan, and everything is going through the Wayne County court system. I have hired a criminal attorney to handle my trial Feb 26th, and hired an attorney from the American Divorce Association for Men (ADAM) for custody/support.



My questions are:

1. What can I do to better my chances of winning custody, based on her past behavior and care for my son?

2. How can I restore the rights that have been stripped from me and given to her family?

3. She has my house and belongings -- can I get them back?

3b. If I were to obtain my house again, where would my son end up? With me? Or with her and her family?

4. Is it wrong to consider her dad's sexual preference and the influence it could have on my son?

5. Can I address the HIV status of her dad and his partner as a potential risk to my son?

6. Is there anything more you can recommend that I do to better my standing with the courts and FOC?


Thank you!
Steve

[socrateaser]

>My questions are:
>
>1. What can I do to better my chances of winning custody,
>based on her past behavior and care for my son?

Prove that she's mentally disordered. Do you have any disinterested witnesses (police, fire, school teachers/admins, etc.), or witnesses who would ordinarily be expected to be friendly to your ex, who will testify to this instability?

If not, then this is a dead end.

>
>2. How can I restore the rights that have been stripped from
>me and given to her family?

OK, let's straighten out your attitude, first. 1. My board does not favor men or women, and I don't deal in value judgments -- just law. So, if you want help, you need to get over the feelings of oppression, because they won't do you any good. Furthermore, any lawyer who is in the business of trying to help "men," may just as easily be using this as a means of exploiting your anger as a man to increase fees.

The reason for this is that there's nothing that any lawyer can do to improve either parents' chances in court, other than to competently represent the client. Individual judges may have prejudices, but the law generally does not.

So, you need to treat this situation like business, rather than personal, otherwise it will destroy you. If you've been criminally charged, and it's your word against her, you'll probably lose, unless your defense attorney is clever enough to get her to recreate the fight and inadvertantly show that the injury claimed to her left arm was the wrong arm. That's what I'd try to do, if I were representing you.

You may be better trying to get a diversion from prosecution in exchange for anger management or something similar, but that's up to the DA to agree to.

>
>3. She has my house and belongings -- can I get them back?

If the home is legally yours, and she has no lease, then you can file an unlawful detainer action to have her evicted. Your restraining orders will keep you personally away from her, but they won't entitle her to remain on your land. You could also just sell the home out from under her.

However, if she has a legal interest in the home, then it's not really your home, it's both of yours, and if so, then get the "it's mine" idea out of your head, because it's not.

As far as your personal property, well, if you can get her out, then you get your property back. You can get a court order to permit you to enter and remove your property, and you can hire an off-duty police officer to keep the peace while you're doing it. That could be a good move, if it will make it inconvenient for her to live there and would cause her to move out on her own.

But, a lot of this will make you look like you don't care about your son's interests from the court's perspective, so it's a double edged sword. Under the circumstances, you may be better off allowing her to stay there until you resolve the custody matters, and having your support obligation reduced to offset the fair market rental value of the home. It might work out negative, so that she would still owe you. If so, then that might encourage her to move out.

>3b. If I were to obtain my house again, where would my son end
>up? With me? Or with her and her family?

It's up to the court, which will try to determine the child's best interests. The court will appoint either a minor's attorney (GAL) or a custody evaluator) to try to determine the child's interests and report back. Which one usually depends on the laws of your state -- sometimes the court appoints both, where there's a particularly difficult custody dispute.

>4. Is it wrong to consider her dad's sexual preference and the
>influence it could have on my son?

I don't do value judgments -- "wrong" requires a moral opinion, not a legal opinion. Legally, the court can consider the grandfather's behavior, but not his sexual preference. The more interesting question is whether either the grandfather or his partner has active AIDS or just HIV. HIV is not likely a threat to the child, but active AIDS means that a person's immune system is severely compromised and that means the person will get all sorts of sicknesses which could be transmitted to the child. So, that would be your argument -- not sexual preference. Don't go there, because you will appear to be a bigot, and that will backfire.

>
>5. Can I address the HIV status of her dad and his partner as
>a potential risk to my son?

See above.

>
>6. Is there anything more you can recommend that I do to
>better my standing with the courts and FOC?

Love your kid and treat your ex with respect no matter how much you want to strangle her. If you show that you're only concerned with the child, and that you are above arguing with your ex over who did what to whom, that will come across to the court and improve your outcomes. If you try to turn this into a gender war you will get squashed like a bug.