International custody feud has new twist

[Phillip]

Courtesy of the Atlanta Journel Constitution (AJC.com)
Mom who fled to Caymans with kids will get them back after school breaks
Mark Davis - Staff
Wednesday, December 3, 2003

The former Gwinnett school teacher who three years ago fled to the Cayman Islands with her children, only to lose them to their father earlier this year when authorities returned her to the United States, got them back in a Fulton court Tuesday.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge John J. Goger overturned an earlier order that had given custody of Emily and Jeffrey Taylor Weeks to their father, Jeff Weeks.

In a decision late Tuesday morning, Goger gave primary custody of the children back to Joyce Williams, 35, of Sugar Hill, claiming he had misgivings about their father's character.

Goger's ruling capped what had been an international struggle for custody of two children involving at least three custody hearings. The latest revealed that Weeks is bisexual, which he reluctantly admitted in pointed questioning.

Weeks should not have tried to hide his personal life, Goger said.

". . . [Y]ou placed a higher priority on either keeping some part of your life secret or disguising it, over just being candid and sticking your chin out and fighting for the best interest of your children," the judge told Weeks.

Emily, 9, and her brother, 8, will be returned to their mother's custody on Dec. 19, the end of the youngsters' academic semester, Goger said. Until then, he said, they are to remain with their father, who will pay $1,145 a month in child support after their return to their mother.

The decision delighted Williams, who burst out in tears when Goger made his announcement.

"We had a judge who was willing to sit and listen to what is the truth and what is not," she said. "I'm relieved. I'm ready to be a mom."

She has earned the right to have custody of the two, said David Baum, her lawyer.

"She's a great mother," he said.

A Norcross attorney, Baum compromised Weeks' credibility with the testimony of two people --- one a computer expert, the other a mother of a gay man.

The computer expert, hired to check Weeks' computer for evidence of pornography, testified that the machine's hard drive had been erased a day before his probe. The expert also testified that he found evidence Weeks had been active on manhunt.net, a gay Web site.

A second witness told the court that her son, who is gay, had told her he had lived with Weeks during 1999 and 2000.

"This was a case that went to credibility," Baum said.

The ruling left Alan Mullinax, Weeks' lawyer, searching for words.

"I am absolutely floored by the decision," said Mullinax, of Stone Mountain. Mullinax said he would apply to the state Supreme Court to review the case.

The judge's decision is the latest twist in a case that dates to October 2000, when Williams, her husband, Patrick Williams, and the children abandoned their Dacula home and vanished. Two days earlier, a Gwinnett judge had ordered the mother to adhere to a custody and visitation agreement she had with Weeks, her former husband.

For more than two years, Weeks had no idea where his children had gone. Then in March, Gwinnett officials told him his ex-wife and children had surfaced in the Cayman Islands, a British crown colony more than 1,000 miles away in the Caribbean.

The Williamses, he learned, were working at a George Town church --- she as a teacher, he as a music minister. A Cayman parishioner who plugged their names into the Internet search engine Google discovered that the two were wanted in Gwinnett County.

Later that month, Cayman officials sent the Williamses back, where each faced criminal charges stemming from their flight from the United States. In June, a Gwinnett judge awarded custody to Weeks, giving Williams limited and supervised visitation rights.

Williams still faces criminal charges for that flight from the United States --- something Williams said she'd never do again.

"We're not going anywhere," she said. "The next time we go to the islands, it'll be for vacation."
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I guess being gay is worse than being a kidnapper.

[Indigo Mom]

Being gay makes you less credible than a kidnapper.