Help!

[openroad_r1]

Hi. My name is Jason, and I am a divorced dad in Oklahoma.  I have been divorced for 5 yrs, and have had constant problems getting visitation with my two daughters, ages 9 and 7.  My ex wife constantly interferes with me seeing the girls, and I have been subjected to numerous false accusations over the past several years.  The most recent and most severe was an accusation of leaving a bruise on my oldest daughter from a spanking, that resulted in child abuse charges and losing my job at the Sheriff's dept.  After a year and a half of battling an overly ambitious ADA, the truth finally won out and my charge was dismissed by the court in December of 04.  However, where my current problem lies is that I was forced to be on "supervised" visitation while my charges were pending.  My normal visitation, which was every weekend, should be reinstated since the charge was dismissed.  However, my ex wife is opposing me on this, and will not sign the papers to reinstate my visitation.  I do have an attorney, but she is very very slow and is not fighting for me at all, and I am nearly at the point of firing her.  I don't have the money for another attorney, yet I need to go back to court, because I know as soon as a judge sees the situation, the judge will override my ex-wife, and will reinstate my visitation.  Can anyone point me in the right direction for information and resources, and possible some legal aid?  I have a wonderful relationship with my daughters, and they want so badly to live with me, and they and I have suffered so much as a result of my ex's antics.  Unfortunately I live in an area where the courts are very biased against fathers and feel pretty hopeless when it comes to getting even fair visitation, much less custody.  Maybe this website could be an answer to prayer.  Any info. would be greatly appreciated. Also, does anyone have any info. about parent evaluations, where the court evaluates both parents and then decides which is better in regards to custody?

[patton]

Our attorney was of the theory that you FILE for SOLE CUSTODY period and then mediate into a settlement.  Maybe if you file this way it will scare the other party enough to settle back into reasonable visitation for you and your daughters.

You can ASK for several things when you file. Of course

No 1 would be SOLE custody.
No 2 would be JOINT custody with YOU as primary residential
No 3 wuld be reasonable visitation with EX as primary residential.

Be sure also that you have in the court order some wording that if EX does not do such and such then there will be sanctions against EX.

[openroad_r1]

Thank you for the info.  I do need to request sanctions in the court order because my EX does not respect the court order for visitation and pretty much does as she pleases because there are no repercussions.  This has become very frustrating.

[someonewhocares]

What county are you in? I live in Oklahoma and you are right it sucks. Although I have no kids I have helped my friend and brother in there fights with their wonderful ex.

[openroad_r1]

I live in Oklahoma County in Edmond.  If I had a decent attorney we could just set a court date quickly, and I know the judge would sign off on the papers and we would be done with it.  However, my attorney is very SLOW and lazy, yet she has been paid in full nearly two years ago, so if I fire her I doubt I would have any luck getting any of my money back, and I don't have any money to hire another attorney.  Also, I am afraid of going to court, as I don't want to deal with the child support issue at this time.  The reason for that is that when the order was set up 4 years ago, I was ordered to pay $420 per month from a $1500 per month gross income.  Now I make $2000 per month, but my bills have gone up and I am stuck with a car payment and higher insurance, and can barely make ends meet, yet because of my income going up I am afraid my child support will go up too, and then I wouldn't have enough money for even food or gas for my car.  My ex doesn't have a job right now, and for the last 4 years has been living off of welfare and child support while she attends college, and just received her bachelors from UCO in Edmond.  She is very adept at milking the system.  Anyway, I know she is capable of making decent money, she has applied for a job as a spanish teacher in a couple of the local school systems.  But right now she has no income, and I am really stressing that I will get royally screwed on child support if we go back to court.

[someonewhocares]

If you do not mind me asking who is your attorney? send me an email and let me know at [email protected] my friend just hired an attorney out of edmond and i am just wondering if it is the sameone. Also I would get on the Oklahoma DHS web site and follow this link

http://www.okdhs.org/childsupport/guidelines/calc.htm

this should tell you a rough guess of how much you should be paying. Since she is not working they will input her income as 5.25 a hour. Also if you have your child(ren) over 120 days per year you get a less rate and if you carry insurance on them you get one too.

[openroad_r1]

Actually my attorney is in Oklahoma City.  Her name is Kristie Scivally.   As far as Edmond attoryneys, I used John Gile originally for my divorce case, and I would not recommend using him.  He is very nice, but too nice.  I did not feel like he was nearly aggressive enough, and my ex spouse was able to get a lot of things she truly did not deserve.  For example, shortly after we got married, I purchased a home for us in Edmond.  I paid for the house with cash, as I received a small amount of money when my mother died two years previously, and the house purchase consumed nearly all the "inheritance."  Somehow, simply because I had deeded the house in both our names, my ex spouse ended up with approx. a third of the house awarded to her, and my attorney would not fight for a better settlement.  Also, I wanted to ask for custody, as my ex had and has serious psychological issues, but is able to mask them when necessary.  John Gile, my attorney, would not go to the trouble of asking the court to order psychological evaluations of both parents, and greatly discouraged me from pursuing custody, stating that it was just too difficult and costly in Oklahoma because the courts are biased against fathers and men.  There is more, but in the interest of saving space, I will let those examples suffice for now.  Hope your friend didn't hire him.

[someonewhocares]

No he hired a women out of Edmond and so far she has been very good. They go back to court at the end of this month. The county he lives in thou is very bad about fathers. It is one of those one judge counties. His ex has a very bad case of PAS and the judge knows it but will not do anything about it. She has actually stated that to the mediator (sp?). We will see how that goes. If you she is good I will give you her name. Also I know that you said you can not afford an attorney but if you need a good one try Jim Pience in Norman. He cost a bit more but is wonderful.

[openroad_r1]

Thank you for the referral.  What is PAS?  Sorry, I'm not up on all the lingo used on the site yet....Just recently signed up.  

[someonewhocares]

PAS is Parental Alienation Syndrome. Look it up on this site. Also legal aide in oklahoma will not touch the case unless you think there is abuse. And the child walfare in this state sucks. There is a dad in Tulsa that is a good resource to use. He can get you forms and help you write forms if you are going pro se. I will see if I can locate his name and number.