Mother is keeping Father[me] from child, please help!

[kran516]

Hello, I am the father of a beautiful baby girl....

Her mother and I were in a relationship from Nov. 2009 until Father's Day 2013. On Father's day, I had her arrested for the second time for domestic violence against me and in front of our daughter. I dismissed the charges from the first arrest on May 12, 2012, which I regret now. I will not be dropping the current charges.

The state attorney here in FL still has not decided if they will be pursuing charges against her.

When she was arrested, I got my daughter and some of her items that she would need. I also put as much of my clothing and belongings in my Mom & Stepfather's vehicle.

While she was in jail, I had my daughter. When she got out of jail, her mother made contact with me to make arrangements to pick up our daughter. Due to the no contact that was in place I could not directly talk to my daughter's mother. Her mother (grandmother to my daughter) acted as our go between. We (Mom & I) agreed that I would bring our daughter to Grandma and that I would get her back on the days that Mom went to Cosmetology School (which are Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 8a-8p). Well needless to say, when I tried to make arrangements to pick our daughter up on the days we agreed upon she would not let me pick her up. I have not seen our daughter since Father's day. She insists that our daughter is breastfed and can't be without her mother. Our daughter is 20 months old as of the 28th of this month. Our daughter had no problem going without breast milk during the night that she stayed with me.

Mom also refuses to let our daughter be at my mom's home. CPI came in and did a home inspection; they did background checks on my mom and my step-dad as well. CPI found no problems here. She (daughter's mom) has not had a social investigation done on her. She was baker acted twice when she was a teenager by her mother. She has a mug shot from some kind of charges from when she was in New York. She also has a few arrests in Florida.

She relies a lot on her mother (Grandmother) to help with our daughter. Her mother does not have a driver's license. Her mother also has an alias and has had several arrests ranging from filing false police report, fraud, and physically abusing an EMT professional. She (daughter's mom) is currently talking to a man, who has served time in jail for charges of FEL/DELI W/GUN/CONC WPN/AMMO. He has also been arrested for other charges.

The only thing I have on my record is regarding my Driving License; it is suspended due to repeated unpaid tickets and driving without a license. I am working on resolving this issue.

I filed a Domestic Violence Injunction (DVI) against her for the abuse and in retaliation she filed one against me. A substitute Judge dismissed my DVI that I had filed on her. The Judge would not allow me to put into evidence my pictures of abuse ,nor the audio recording of the events that took place on the day I had her arrested.

I could not afford an Attorney. I am a Graphic Designer and she has done everything that she could to keep me from excelling at this. She has destroyed my Mac laptop and cell phone last year. During the past year she has also destroyed the majority of my canvas art. She spray-painted these. On Father's day she destroyed a laptop that I had just received from my brother and my iPod, a whole wardrobe, and the list could keep going. She has destroyed almost everything that I own in addition to the physical and mental abuse that I endured with her during our relationship.

She refuses to work or allow a babysitter to watch our daughter. So the 3 days of week that she went to school I was the primary caregiver. I had to get a job and tell them I could only work 3 days(4 days but who works on Sunday). I was expected to pay all the living expenses with the days that I was able to work. That was not enough money to cover all the living expenses.

I borrowed money from my Father and got an attorney to represent me on the DVI that she filed against me; he also requested a rehearing on my DVI against her. The attorney caught her in several lies during her DVI hearing against me. She tried to over talk the Judge. The DVI against me was dismissed. The rehearing on my DVI was also dismissed.

She has now filed a Proof of Paternity. I was served these on 7-8-2013. My name is on our daughter's birth certificate as her Father. She verbally stated several times at my DVI hearing against her that I am her biological father. Throughout the DVI that she filed against me, she stated that I am her biological father. Throughout the Proof of Paternity she also states that I am her biological father.

The job that I was working at when all this happened has allowed me to go from a part-time employee to an employee that works on contract. I went from 24 hours a week to 3 or 4 hours a week, if that. I am currently looking for a job.

It is hurting me so bad to be without our daughter. I would like to seek primary custody of our daughter, with appropriate time-sharing. The audiotapes that I have from the abuse show how explosive she gets
and how her first-born child is scared of her. This is not what I want our daughter to grow up with.

I cannot afford the attorney I used in the DVI case and I am in need of an Attorney that can work on a sliding scale fee. Please I am desperate for help.

Sincerely,

Loving Father

[Mom1Step2]

My husband was told by his lawyer (when he was in a similar circumstance), if you want to be the father, the court will let you be the father. She stated you were the father by putting you in the birth certificate. Paternity usually doesnt matter unless the father wants to get out of the picture, and even then it doesnt matter much of the time.
It doesnt sound like you have a custody order in place, you need to get the ball rolling with that. Most states have self help centers that will point you in the right direction. These boards are not legal advice, just folks like you trying to help each other.
Might I suggest you remove all of your personal info from your post? These boards can be seen by anyone & your ex could find it & who knows what.

[ocean]

The paternity is probably a formality with the courts to make sure you are the father and begin the custody process.

Get your license straightened out ASAP. That is a big issue she can use against you.

Not sure where you are in the process, do you can a court date coming up? for what-paternity?

You need to file custody papers with the family court. You can look them up online in most places or go get a copy to fill out at the court house. Ask for temporary schedule so you can start seeing child while you get through the court process/trial which can take up to a year or more.

Talk to that lawyer, see if you can do the leg work, drop off paperwork, have ex served. Then you can hire the lawyer for court days only.If not, find a lawyer who will work with you. You can ask for joint custody with a parenting plan for each parent.

Edit your post, take out real names.

[kran516]

Yeah I realized that after I posted it. How do I edit my post?

[MixedBag]

ok, I THINK I edited out all the real stuff and fixed them to the appropriate pro-nouns.

Off to fix and delete your other posts, ok?

Just trying to help...

[kran516]

@Mixedbag Thank you!

@Ocean - She doesn't have her license either and can't get it for awhile. We didn't have a car either. I got rid of it after too many driving on suspended charges. So we used our friends for rides, her mom, or the bus.
For the paternity, I have until the 29th to respond. I was going to get a lawyer for that but he was asking too much and he needed it by that date. So I dont think I'll use him this time for this. I used him for the dom. inj. and he was awesome but I've already spent a lot on that. So you say I should work on filing custody papers? I actually found those online and I'm going to get them printed out tomorrow.

[MixedBag]

ok, PM received with your words and I changed this one just now.  Off to see what happened on the other boards -- and will delete that (again) if it's a duplicate.  You really only need to "post" on one board -- folks read them all, but when you post on several boards, different conversations start when you really need them all in one place to follow along.

[MixedBag]

So.....each state should have a "pro bono" office maybe under the State's Bar Association....

That's how you can find it here in Alabama.

However, I caution you -- sometimes you get what you pay for too.

[ocean]

Paternity hearing should be pretty straight forward, bring birth certificate and you may want to agree to the test just to be totally sure. File the custody papers at anytime and that will get the ball rolling on getting joint custody in place with parenting plan on who has child when.

It will be very hard to take child away from mom with child services not involved right now. Ask for joint custody if you are close to her with half time or as close as you can get to half time as possible. You can also ask for first right of refusal with specifics that state if either parent needs a babysitter for more than 2 hours (or whatever) they will call the other parent before grandparents or any other person.

If you are allowed to send mom mail (order of protection is now dropped?) then send her a simple:
Ex,
I would like to set up times that I can pick up xx. Please send me times/days during the week that I can pick her up. I am also available when you are at school/work. I would like us to make a schedule that works for us instead of a judge that does not know us. I am willing to make a parenting schedule with you, please send me a monthly plan that you would like to see ordered and we can see if we can work it and have our schedule court ordered. I would like us to be able to co-parent so xx has many people in her life that love her. Thank you.

[kran516]

@Mixed bag - I was told by the administrator to post on as many boards as possible.

@Ocean - No contact is still in order due to me still filing domestic violence charges against her. I've tried 3rd party talking to her and she had the sheriff come to her house, call me and tell me this can't happen. She wont let our daughter around me or my mom's where I stay. She is a monster.