hearing question

[krazyfamily_6]

Dear Soc,

We live in OH.

As I have posted before, I am the temporary CP of my 11 year old son.  

I'll try to make the history brief.......

BM and I agreed that it would be best for our son if he lived with me while BM finished
college.  The only concerns BM had at the time was whether or not she would be able to
make ends meet if she was not recieving child support.  In the end, BM agreed it would
be in our son's best interests to live with me.

As of June 2006, my son moved in with me full time.  My attorney, BM and myself sat down
and hammered out an agreement naming me as the residential parent but giving us joint legal
custody.  BM voluntarily got EOW visitation and two weeks summer vacation.  I offered more
but BM said she would be unable to practice more visitation due to her work and school
schedule. BM and myself signed the agreement.

The agreement was filed with the court at the end of July.  I continued to pay weekly child
support as well.  BM would pick our son up on a fairly regular basis for her visits with
him.  

By October we still had heard nothing back from the courts regarding our motion.  BM and
I had a disagreement and she decided to revoke her signature from our motion.  I received
notice from the court that BM had revoked her signature and that our motion had been set
aside.  The court set my motion for hearing.

I filed an ex parte motion with the court asking for temporary custody of my son until the
hearing and It was granted.  BM never contested.  That was Oct 06.  Six weeks went by where
BM did not pick our son up for her parenting time.  When she finally did pick our son up
for her visit, she stated to me that she wanted to come to some kind of agreement to stay
out of court.  

My attorney faxed a proposal to BM's attorney stating that; I be given custody, that BM
be given 3 weekends a month parenting time and that child support be awarded.  BM hit the
roof.  Bm stated that she would NOT agree to pay child support and that she would see me
in court.  

Almost a month goes by and BM is becoming more verbally abusive to our son.  My son meets
with his counselor who agrees that it would be best if BM's visits with our son were
supervised.  I filed an ex parte motion with the courts asking for BM to have supervised
visitation which was also granted.  BM was served in DEC '06 and has never contested this.

It is now March and BM has still not set anything up for these visits with
our son.  She has spoken to him via telephone an average of three times a month since.
It has been two months now since she was served with the supervised visitation order.

Last Friday, I got a notice from my attorney that BM has requested an immediate hearing
 on the temporary orders for custody which the courts granted me.    This makes no sense to me that she would wait so long to do this as we go to
hearing for the actual custody case on March 15th.  The immediate hearing was this past Friday and we never even went inside the courtroom. Her attorney asked if we could compromise and give BM an unsupervised visit before court and I agreed to a 10 hour unsupervised visit with BM. The visit was today and my son said it went well.

We go for the custody hearing in just under two weeks now.

As of now, my son has been living with me full time for the past 8 months. He is enrolled
in school and doing well despite his learning disabilties. He has many friends and is
involved in the sports that he so loves to play.  He also has no desire to move back in
with BM.  

questions.........

1. Will the fact that BM waited for many months to set anything up to see our son bear any weight on the judge's decision regarding custody?

2. What about the fact that BM has failed to practice her court ordered visitation?


3. In your opinion, what are my chances at keeping custody of my son?

4. What about the agreement we had in place over the summer that was filed with the court, will that bear any weight in this case?


Thank you in advance for any help you can offer me!

[socrateaser]

>1. Will the fact that BM waited for many months to set
>anything up to see our son bear any weight on the judge's
>decision regarding custody?

Sure. Judge will view BM as disinterested and leave you with the bulk of custody.

>
>2. What about the fact that BM has failed to practice her
>court ordered visitation?

Weighs in your favor.

>3. In your opinion, what are my chances at keeping custody of
>my son?

MMM. 100%.

>
>4. What about the agreement we had in place over the summer
>that was filed with the court, will that bear any weight in
>this case?

It's evidence of BM's inability to make decisions affecting the child's interests.

I'd say it's in the bag, unless you have bodies buried underneath your home.

[krazyfamily_6]

Thank you Soc!