Domestic Violence Doesn’t Just Harm Women, but K Street Doesn’t Want to Know About It

Since 1994 when Congress passed it, the “Violence Against Women Act” has been the weapon against domestic violence.  The act was to be reauthorized in 2012 to include gays, undocumented immigrants, American Indians and students.  Republicans in the Senate joined Democrats to approve the reauthorization, Republicans in the House did not.  Then the Republicans took a beating in the 2012 Presidential elections, and the reauthorization of the bill is back on the floor of the senate in February, with Republicans now more accommodating to compromises, as they hope to lure women and latinos back  (or finally) into their ranks.

One may think that at least, this  hard-learned lesson in political realism is for the greater good – the end of domestic violence. Wrong: the tackling of this problem has been nothing but petty, parochial politics (PPP) and PPP it remains.

Why? We now know  that domestic violence is not only the deed of men against women, but also that of women against men and children: physical violence along with a less apparent but as pernicious a form of violence, parental alienation, which is given a free ride in family courts, which are women-biased courts. The very fact that domestic violence is defined as domestic violence against women gives women leeway to overuse of the accusation of domestic violence, to get the divorce they want and expel their ex from the life of their children.

Want to solve domestic violence? Change course and instead of adding categories of victims, throw universality into the law already. Just pass a Domestic Violence Act, that will aim at protecting women, gays, immigrants, American Indians and… men, too.

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Nicolas Moreno’s Way of Saying “I Want to See My Kids”

That’s the bottom line: for fathers claiming their rights, it all starts with the desperation from not seeing their kids: Jason Hatch (England) could not see his, Charlie and Olivia. He joined Fathers 4 Justice (UK) and stunted Buckingham Palace in September 2004 (The New York Times Magazine, May 8 2004). At the end of 2007, I had not seen my girls for almost three years and was harassed by ex via Manhattan Family Court. I was seeing myself going straight to jail and at least, I wanted my girls to know why; I started this blog.  Nicolas Moreno, from Romans (France), has adopted a bolder way: hunger strike.

Dauphiné Libéré, 01/21/2013

Let me say first that if I could trade the New York State family justice for the French one, I’ll do it in a second. There, I bet justice may be slow but there ain’t no trial for child abuse that lasts more than 6 years; no judge arrogant enough to tell you, after having found you innocent of child abuse, that your relationship with your kids is “damaged” hence your kids and yourself are doomed to therapeutic visitations for an indefinite period of time; finally,  joint-custody is the default option in divorce.

Is the French justice system faultless? On paper, it acknowledges the right to fathers to be part of their kids’ life; Yet it did not protects Nicolas Moreno’s when ex moved with Luca and Evan, their sons, some 400 miles away from him, for no justifiable reason.

Nicolas is part of SVP Papa, a father rights organization which is asking for the inclusion of alternate staying of the kids with each parent into family laws. There is a fathers meeting in Nantes, the city whose mayor is Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Prime minister, on February 20; to help him hear the Nicolas of France.

Hat Tip: Scott Gabriel Alexander Reiss

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One More September 10, Seven Years Later

Some readers of this blog may know that September 10 is a special day for me. Seven years ago, September 10 2005 was my last supervised visitation. Looking back at it, this last supervised visitation had to be the inevitable fall off a cliff of a supervised visit process that was not ever seriously monitored by Manhattan Family Court.  It’s all about regulation and public scrutiny having deserted family justice for a long while.

But today I want to rejoice with the haves fathers, like this man:

Just wish the haves would give a thought to the have-nots.

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Parental Alienation:The Nurturing of Hate

You don’t know what parental alienation and parental alienation syndrom are? Take a look at what follows:

On December 19, on Camille’s birthday, I sent my girls two watches – one for Camille, one for Chloé- and a card. On Tuesday January 24, I received – in the very envelope I had used- the two watches – unwrapped- and my card with the following line on the lower right corner:

We want nothing from you except the return of our privacy, starting with the removal of your disgusting website.

What’s the intention of these words?  To hurt, to rubb hate to my face. Touché.

This line is not signed. Camille? Chloé? Mom?  A “we” wrote to me. At this stage, the alienating parent has won. The brainwashing has been completed. Mom does not need anymore to tell her victims their father is to be hated, for mom’s hate  has been appropriated by the victims. At this stage, why would mom feel she is doing anything wrong, if she has ever?  Two seemingly rational girls reflect back her own hate. The privacy my girls say they want back?  Although they live in New York City, it is as if they were living in a bunker to me. I have no contact with them except through mom’s email, through mom’s phone, under mom’s control. But mom wants the removal of “my website,” which is the only thing that keeps her from evicting me in peace from the universe of the girls. The victims take side with the executioner, that’s the beauty of parental alienation.  The request to remove my blog is a starting point without any end. In fact, I am deep fried in eternal hate: Mom’s.

Girls, I love you no matter what.

But this blog will go on. For a long time now, it ‘s not just been about you. It has been about preserving the privacy of other children like you with their dads; And to try to keep the irresponsible amateurs of Manhattan Family Court -the Sturms, the Octobres, the Spitzers, the Berrils – to give a free pass to parental alienation.

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Family Courts in New York State Finally Get Some Scrutiny from the Media

Gosh, I wish the New York Times had sneaked in Manhattan Family Court when I was a regular customer there, from 2001 to

Guantánamo

2009. But later is better than never. William Glaberson’s article from yesterday, Friday November 18, describes the making of  people’s family justice in New York City. Readers can learn what divorced fathers have come to know as they tasted family courts. It is Guantánamo right here in the city.

I guess many people don’t know the most important piece of news one learns from this article: Family courts in New York City are not supposed to be the secretive places they are. On the contrary, they have been ordered to be opened to the public since 1997. Yet it looks that for fourteen years now, the media has not been welcome there. Glaberson mentions arrogant cops denying reporters entry to court rooms, judges asking reporters to show their credentials to court clerks, who ask them to get the approval of the state’s chief administrative judge. As a result, accountability is nil. The little world of family court does as it pleases and prospers. Trials last what they last – mine lasted more than six years, law guardians sleep on the children’s  interests which they are to represent; unsupervised social-agency workers that supervise the visitations with your children have the leeway to bully you while you are trying to keep your relationship with your kids from deleting.

The media should not stop halfway in this most welcome attempt to lift the veil on the nauseating secrets of family justice in New York State. There is a lot of investigating to do about the work of  support magistrates, these gracious people who behind close doors decide about child support payments that too often put non-custodial parents in the red and sometimes in jail. And please, pay a visit to the nasty fellows of the Support Collection Unit on 151 West Broadway, in the City.

When is the reform of family justice be on the agenda of New York State Attorney General, Eric T. Schneiderman?

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Occupy Family Courts?

Manhattan Family Court

I can’t help thinking last night  of a comment from a reader, Jay, on my last posting. Jay mentioned that in Canada, fathers have started occupy family courts years ago. Perhaps, fathers are less passive in Canada and this is why family laws are not as intensely biased against fathers than in the US, at least than in New York State.

In any case, Zuccoti Park is a only a few blocks from the infamous building of Manhattan Family court, on 60 Lafayette Street.  I visit it in my dreams. On the eight and ninth floors, the court rooms: that’s where fathers are striped from their rights to see their kids. Going down on the fourth floor, the little rooms without natural light,where the support magistrates lend an complacent ear to the mothers’ child support claims and expenses of all kinds.

I really would not mind to see the working of this inhuman bureaucracy disrupted for a while. Fathers for Justice USA, Fathers and families anything in mind? If yes, count me in.

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Parental Alienation and Lost Diligence in Manhattan Family Court

I live  at a 40 minute-subway ride from my girls and I have not seen them for almost six years. That ‘s why, I guess, I pay special attention to teenagers when I see them, in public means of transportation for instance.  There are strange creatures busy with smart phones. Every time I see them, I think that my girls don’t have one. Or rather that’s what ex answered my lawyer when I asked for their personal cell numbers. Phone communication with my girls has to go through mum’s landline phone number. Therefore mum has total control over it and there is just no free communication.

How ironical! As I was deep into my phony trial for child abuse a few years ago, the girls were still little. Yet  the  law guardian appointed by the court was giving credence to the idea that my girls were  able to make independent decisions like adults. They said  they were not  comfortable seeing dad at his home, that’s all there was to it. At some point though, when mum’s interference in supervised visitations became fully documented, the judge decided to make a step. I was ranting that I wanted my unsupervised visitations back. I got one shot at it.

May 26, 2007. I have gotten rid of sloppy Spitzer and Comprehensive Family Services. “Family Matters” director is supposed to pick up the girls at their place and bring them to “Le Monde” on Broadway and 112 street. On Friday evening, you cannot go more public and safe. The place was indeed packed. The supervisor was to leave us alone an hour.

I had waited fourty five minutes at Le Monde when I finally received a call from Family matters. Same old story: she has tried to convince the girls to come to see me, at no avail. Why? No reason. Mum must have trumpeted her encouragement to the girls. One full year after that last try, no question asked to mum by the law guardian came the verdict: therapeutic visitations. The Court believes that the girls have to have a relationship with their dad, bla, bla, bla…but after having left mum derailed my relationship wit the girls and alienate them from me, the Court has no choice but to repeat the recipes that have consistently failed. Manhattan Family Court does not apologize for miscarriage of justice.

Girls, in case you were wondering, I am on Facebook.

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My Girls,This Blog and Their Mom

By the end of 2007, I had not had any contact with my girls for more than two years; I had been on trial for child abuse for more than five years. My bank account was blocked by New York Child Support Collection Unit to collect ludicrous unreimbursed medical expenses that had piled up because ex prohibited medical providers to have contacts with me, so that I pay them with credit cards and have them fill up insurance forms. Hence came the idea of this blog: if ex with the help of the New York State Family Laws were to make me miserable, I would not go quietly. Moreover, I figured, perhaps one day my girls would read this blog and realize that all these years, I was thinking of them and love them.

I now know they read this blog. Two years ago I invited them to my birthday party and I had an entire conversation with them – my first in years!- about it. They told me: “We don’t want to have anything to do with you as long as this blog is up.”Again,I invited them to my birthday party this year, and again, they said: “Dad, tear down this blog!”

As we say in French, “chat échaudé craint l’eau froide” (once bitten, twice shy). In my long life with ex in Manhattan Family Court, I was always short of one condition to resume unsupervised visitations. That’s why yesterday I made this proposal, which I am posting here  to make sure that they get it (our communication was through my ex-wife’s work email address): “when I see you as I used to, on the weekends, unsupervised, and when I have email addresses and cell phone numbers of the girls, this blog will come down.”

Just a hunch, and nothing would make me happier than being wrong:  this blog will just cease to exist like many, by readers’ desertion. Anyway, I love you girls.

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For New York State Justice, The Private Sector Is Much of the Problem, not the Solution

On the first days of this new year, the New York State Justice system is crawling under problems. New York State Judges are

Dog the Bounty Hunter

asking for the first pay raise in twelve years; they are even considering forming a union-like group (these folks are so nineteenth century!); The justiciables of the State of New York too are having problems of their own. Theoretically, they are presumed innocent.  Yet, they will rot in jail while waiting for a trail unless they can buy a bond to remain free. The problem is that the New York bail system is as well regulated as the US financial system. Bondsmen surrenders defendants when they feel like it and then seize part or all of the the collateral of the bond’s buyer. This is not helping already overcrowded State prisons.

As usual, the family court system has eluded the attention of the press. However it stinks as much as the rest. It takes one flimsy accusation of abuse and your right to see your kids is gone. And there is no buying of a bond that would allow you to see them. You are now under the regime of supervised visitations. Your trial will take years and during all this time, your only option to see your kids is through the private sector, with one of these totally unregulated businesses called Family Something, that will pretend to assess your parenting abilities and whose activity is not even checked out by the law guardian -the lawyer of your kids- and the  family court judge.  The outcome of the mix of biased law, private sector involvement and lack of regulation is that non-custodial parents on trial loose their rights to see their kids.

What is the solution? Certainly not more market in the justice system. Let us start by regulating all these loose cannons that the justice system is working with.

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The Government Wants Me to Take Time to Be a Dad; Alas, Ex and Family Court Don’t!

The Advertising Council is about to launch an advertising campaign for the Department of Health and Human Services. The punch line: “Take Time to Be  a Dad.” The campaign is targeted at minorities;  it is assumed that white males know how to spend time with their kids. Among the truths that the campaign wants to stress, the fact that the smallest moments between a dad and his kid make a difference, and “I don’t need to be a hero to be a dad.”  I feel much better already.

Nicely-marketed paternalism stinks as much as the nineteenth centuryish, holy Joe do-gooder one. The government has its priorities on fatherhood wrong. If the Department of Health and Human Services really cares about fathers being fathers, the first thing it has to do is to preserve their rights. In New York State for instance, that entails changing the family laws of the state.  The government should spend whatever it takes to change the mentalities in family court. Most judges, support magistrates and law guardians have one view on fatherhood: “Pay stupid.” Time with kids is for mum.

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