My granddaughters were unlawfully kidnapped in Woods County by CPS investigator Jessica Eastman. Children who were not under court jurisdiction were temp under a safety plan that was approved. mom
The dad legally placed the babies in the home with the family.

Woods County CPS

The home was approved by Woods County Children’s Services and then expedited 2hrs away from Tarrant County. CPS department violated jurisdiction. The children were in good hands, there was a second person listed as a care giver who was approved after 2 weeks CPS investigator Jessica Eastman went to Wood County out of jurisdiction and unlawfully took the babies using no legal documentation, but an affidavit with the wrong date of removal 5mth difference is a big issue case that did not start until September 2018.

Jessica wrote 05/22 /2018 how can you make that big of a mistake. She didn’t present a signed petition by a real judge with 2 hand witness and real affidavit of real court papers. The kids were then placed the same day as Gina and Mike Smith. Biological parents were not notified until CPS removed the babies a week later. It was all pre-meditated planning, it can be proven.

Removed Unlawfully

Shortly after the children were removed unlawfully they were injured multiple times I have pictures of these injuries I have proof by documenting text messages of neglected child endangerment I need help getting this story out these are my grandkids

CPS approved my daughter’s monitor return and all parties even casa than when she got pregnant cps caseworker Demetria Jackson told her she would not get a fair trial so did her old attorney Donald C Nemic and she was tricked and forced into a mediation that was not fair they have been trying to steal her children never did they wanna share them. so from 2018 when the case went on to close, 2020 now she is now still fighting foster parents in family court. she will never back down and neither will I were fighting for justice to return the children.

The post Texas Woods County CPS Takes Children With False Documents. appeared first on Fighter Cries.

At the moment, over 42 people have been involved, at my front door in Pflugerville, Texas, in the parking lot of the Department of Family Protective Services on Summit Drive, along with online meetings with seven lawyers and multiple foster families. The family has been torn apart by two Travis County judges, one Grimes County Sheriff, two Anderson County CPS caseworkers, three sheriffs from Travis County Sheriff’s Department, six sheriffs and officers from the Department of Family Protective Services, and over ten CPS caseworkers.

Due to my 15-year-old daughter, and EL, running away from home on March 1, 2020, my other three children have been kidnapped by the state. We were given a 32-page affidavit written by four or five different people all combined into one document. For the record, the majority of the document was not factual or true in its accounts. There have been allegations of drugs, gang affiliation, family violence, and unthinkable actions which are not and many that have never been part of our family or the upbringing of my children.

The state has held three courtroom hearings over Zoom, all of which extended protective orders to maintain custody of my children with no evidence or any factual allegations or statements on which the extension of the temporary order was granted.

My court appointed attorney issued a withdrawal the day after she informed me that my husband and I had both passed the drug test that we offered to take, and two days after that, she was informed I was never properly served. The third hearing was for a three-hour 262 hearing to see the evidence against my husband and me. Again, I was never properly served, Mom, the mother of the four children whom the department kidnapped. I am not a party to this lawsuit. Let me say nobody, not one single person has done their job to prove guilt or innocence or protect my children. It was suggested they were in immediate danger/harm’s way, and that was the determining factor, a lie.

There is not one piece of evidence. It is all hearsay or simple and completely untrue allegations made by a scorned child. Not one CPS case worker has done a home study; not one person has walked into my house; no one checked to see if there was any proof of neglect or abuse. No interviews have been done, no one has contacted my kid’s three schools, no one spoke to principals, teachers, or classmates, and no one has requested any medical records.

All the children have been seen by the same pediatrician for over five years. There has never been a phone call to the police department or to CPS from anyone. There is no evidence to support any form of neglect or abuse towards my four children or myself.

I would like to provide a written account as a way of introducing you to our four children and putting my statements on record.

EH – three-years-old, the youngest
Her experience thus far in state custody has been horrifying. Her caseworker, Kayla, placed her in a foster home who physically and mentally abused her. My baby girl informed me at the very first visitation, “Mama the man is mean to me. Mama the man is mean to me. Take me home please. I want to go home.” I had to hear this from my baby and send her back to this abuse. I informed the CPS visitation supervisor, Sylvia, and she said there must be some kind of misunderstanding. The family she was with had been approved by the state. After THREE weeks of her living in that “approved” home, evidence was revealed to them that EH was being abused and spanked/ hit by her foster father. They found out that the man was hitting my child. My baby, my daughter, had never been spanked, never had hands put on her, not once in her entire life, but the Department of Family and Protective Services took her from the safety and familiarity of her home, with her father and I, due to allegations of abuse and neglect, only to place her in real abuse.

I was horrified, and the mental and emotional damage that began with CPS taking her, then separating her from her siblings, was further amplified through true physical abuse. They took her from us with no proof, no evidence, and put her in a state-approved foster home that neglected and abused her for three weeks. The state and foster home physically abused her, with evidence. Where is justice for EH? She was then removed from this home and placed with her estranged, older sister, who she had never met! Since she’s been placed in this second home that the Department of Family Services approved, I have only physically seen my daughter in person once.

It was the weekend of Easter. EH told me she was not allowed milk, and that Lexi, her sister and caregiver, and Violet, her niece of one year old, don’t like her. EH said they were mean sometimes and that she wanted to come home. Since that last visit, I have been given four, 30-minute Zoom calls, and in that time, my daughter went from saying 300 words to barely saying 10 words. All she does is make faces and baby sounds. EH could count to 30, and now it is difficult for her to count to ten. She has regressed dramatically, and she has begged her father and me to take her home. She doesn’t like it there. Whether true or not, she believes they don’t like her, and they’re mean to her. She went from being an advanced three-year-old to acting like she’s nine months old. All she wants is to come home and be with her family.

She seems sad, scared, and lonely. She is not the little girl that was taken from my arms.

EC – five-years-old
He was placed with a family in Georgetown. He told us at our visits it was okay, but he wanted to come home with us. He cries every night asking for his mommy and daddy. He said, “Sometimes I will just start crying because I think of you, and I miss you, and I want to come home.” He wanted to know why he could not come home and be with us. This was stated by him on all three of our visits. He would cry when we had to leave him there. He begged me, “Mommy, take me home with you?  Are you here to take me home? Why can’t I come home mommy? I love you mommy. I love you daddy.” We have had three, 30-minute Zoom calls with him since Easter weekend. There should have been four, but this past week, he was unable to appear with no answer as to why or where he was.

Nobody will let me talk to him or see him. He told me in a visit, “Mommy, every day I have to go see a new doctor.” Why is he going to a doctor? Who is he seeing? Why am I not being told about this?

In our last 30-minute Zoom visit, he informed me that he was told I was mean and bad to him, his daddy, and his sister, and if I wouldn’t be good, I would never see him again. He would never get to come home, and he wants to come home. Who says something like that to a child?

This state “approved” home is brainwashing my five-year-old to believe his parents are bad people and that he’s never going to get to come home again. Where is the justice for EC?

He told me to please pick him up and take him home. He looked like he had been drugged and had been crying every time we’ve seen him. He could barely keep his eyes open the past three Zoom calls. His eyes are all puffy and swollen, and he’s so tired he can barely stay awake for a 30-minute call.

I asked him what was going on, and he told me he throws up every night before he goes to bed. He also throws up in his bed. I asked if the foster family knew that he was throwing up. He said, “Yes, they just let me throw up.” I asked him what was wrong?

He said his stomach hurts all the time, and they don’t let him have milk because the virus is in the milk. He said he can’t go to the store because the virus is everywhere, and he can’t do school work because of the virus.

He has not completed his kindergarten school work since he was taken from my arms. He was also in speech therapy, and it was supposed to be for a year. His teacher was sure she and I could help him with his speech, and it could be permanently corrected. However, he never completed any of his speech therapy or his schoolwork, and now he is behind in his development.

I asked him what he does all day, and he said he sits at the table and colors. I asked him if he goes outside and plays, and he said, “No, we’re not allowed to go outside.” He has to stay inside with the baby. I was told that he went to another home and a CPS worker told me it was like a daycare.

Monday through Friday, but when I looked it up, it is a program for special needs children, and it was to give the foster parents a break from him. So not only was he uprooted out of his bedroom, his home, siblings, and parents to live with strangers, he doesn’t even live with one set of strangers, he lives with two!

I’m a housewife. I have been a housewife for 19 years, and my children have never had a babysitter, have never gone to daycare, and the only time they have ever been apart from me was when they began school.

Fourteen-year-old ER was on the track team, the football team, and is an A/ B student. Twice this year he made the A honor roll. When he is not playing football, running track, or doing kickstart, he likes to play Fortnight and jump on the trampoline with his little brother and sister. He is above average and will be entering high school in all AP classes and finishing with six college credits. He is a boy of few words.

The state took him from our home and placed him in a boys’ home where he was tormented on a daily basis by other kids threatening to beat him up, calling him names, bullying him, and even elbowed him in the face to shut him up and busted his lip.

So, he spent his time playing with the little kids because it reminded him of being home and with his siblings. He was told by his caseworker and foster care that his parents were in the KKK, that we are racists, we had drug charges, we were drug addicts, we were bad people, and that he was going to be living there for the next year. He was not allowed to contact us, and we were given a 30-minute phone call once a week. He was informed by the caseworker and lawyer that his father beat him and his older sister, and he couldn’t go home. He didn’t even know where he was.

He had the opportunity to complete his eighth-grade year at Pflugerville ISD and graduate because he independently finished it on his iPhone. He has goals. He told the caseworker, foster care, the teacher, and head person of the boys’ home that nothing they were saying about his parents was true.

EL, his sister, had run away, and she was lying. He was not in danger, he was never hurt, he was never scared at home, but he was scared there. He hated it there, and every day somebody was trying to get him to believe that his parents were bad. They were trying to brainwash and poison my son against us. As they are doing to my three-year-old and five-year-old.

During the first court hearing, the judge called him, and he told her that everything being said about his parents was untrue. His sister was lying, the people telling her these things were lying, and that he wanted to go home. He requested that she send his brother and sister and him home to his parents. He told her that he wanted to be involved in the upcoming evidence hearing. He has informed his lawyer that everything was untrue.

About a week before the 262 hearing, which was set for May 14, 2020, ER was playing with the little kids when a fire extinguisher fell on his foot and cracked two of his toes. He had to get five stitches. I spoke to him the day of the hearing and he told me he told his new lawyer that he wanted to be at the 262 hearing and that he would be at the Zoom court hearing. He wished me luck and told me he loved me, and he’ll see me soon because he believed that the judge wanted to find the truth because she knew the accusations were false.

Well, needless to say, he wasn’t at the 262 hearing like he had requested. ER’s lawyer informed the judge that ER confirmed the accusations were false and that he wanted to speak to her. This was the second time the judge would talk to him on the phone. The judge called him after the 262 hearing. She asked him two questions: What would it take for your family to be back together again? ER told my sister EL to tell the truth.
The second question was what did he want the end court results to be?  He told him and his brother and sister to go home.

The next day ER was brought to our front door. However, the judge did not release the other two children or return EL, EC, EH, are still with their kidnappers.

EL – sixteen-years-old (Fifteen when this began in March.)
She was a Pflugerville High School transfer student involved in Kickstart throughout her middle school and part of her high school education, but her dream since she was five was to be a veterinarian and go to A&M. We transferred her to Pflugerville High School which has an FFA program. She was very determined, smart, and worked very hard to be great. Nothing came easy for her. We have dedicated the past two years to the FFA program raising goats and going to every competition. She was an officer in the FFA, she was in AP classes, and in pre-AP classes. She worked so very hard.

She always felt she didn’t fit in, in middle school, and then she was sure she was going to fit in, in high school because it was with people that wanted to do the same thing she wanted to do. Her freshman year, she had ups and downs, but she did very well for herself. As a sophomore, the year seemed better until Thanksgiving. Suddenly she was having trouble with her peers, she didn’t fit in, she wanted to drop out of the Officer Club in the FFA, and she said people didn’t like her, people made fun of her, and said bad things about her. As a mom, I did the best I could to console her and spoke to the school, but the truth is kids are mean and anywhere she goes some people will dislike her. I told her not to worry about what everybody was saying or thinking, to only focus on what she wanted, where she wanted to go, and what she wanted to do.

The boys were not on her to-do list as far as we knew, but on March 1st, EL jumped out of her window at 3:17 A.M. Fourteen days later, she was found in Navasota, Texas, with a boy named Freddy and his parents. She said she was happy there and wanted to stay. The conversation happened at the Navasota Sheriff’s department.

I told her no. I told her it was time to come home. I pleaded with her and told her that nothing she had done was so bad that we couldn’t repair it and get her back on track with her dreams. The sheriff there had informed me that she had made allegations of domestic abuse, of my husband abusing me, and that he was obligated to call CPS.

So I waited for a CPS officer from Anderson County to arrive. Two men came and talked to my daughter and then informed me of the allegations of abuse from my husband to me. Due to her accusations, they couldn’t let my child come home. So, I came back to Pflugerville, Texas, without my 15-year-old daughter. That night, two CPS officers and two sheriffs showed up at our door after dark. Our children were in bed asleep. I was still crying over the fact that my beautiful, 15-year-old had told such horrendous lies and refused to come home. Heartbroken, as any mother would be, that her child had thrown away her family and her future plans to be with some boy we didn’t even know was part of her life.

CPS informed my husband that they were keeping EL and we were to call them in the morning so that they could talk to me and the children. My husband asked them if this was a home visit, and they said no. They left a CPS handbook on the doorstep and left.

The following afternoon they returned again with three sheriffs and guns. My husband asked again if this was a home visit. They said no. It was unclear as to why there were guns involved and why CPS arrived with sheriffs. They spoke to my husband for about an hour; they spoke to me for about 15 minutes, and in the process, all I did was sit down on the floor and cry. They wanted to make sure that I wasn’t a victim, that I wasn’t hurt. I lifted up my shirt and showed them I had no bruises, and I wasn’t hurt. They wanted to see our children to make sure that they were not hurt. They physically saw all three of my children. There were no bruises or any marks on them. There was no reason for them to remove my children and no evidence of abuse or neglect. Yet they came back with a warrant to remove our children the next day. They came beating down the door, beating on my garage door, terrifying my babies and me.

I was home by myself with the kids as my husband was at work, and I did not let them come in. We were all so afraid of this threatened home invasion and robbing of my children. When my husband got off work, he contacted the sheriff’s department, and the sheriff informed him that they weren’t going to stop. They were coming for our children. They had a court order, so we packed bags for our children, told them everything would be okay, that mommy and daddy loved them, and they would be home soon.
Due to them drawing guns and being ready to take us at gunpoint. We decided to turn our kids over to protect our children from fear and extended emotional damage. We took them to the CPS parking lot, where there were at least six cops and six CPS workers.

We did the best we could, and we told our children goodbye. We promised them they would be home soon. The CPS workers said they would keep our children together. My oldest son held onto his brother and sister promising us he would take care of them like any big brother should until we were all back together. We were sure as soon as we saw a judge our children would come home. We knew we had done nothing wrong.
They later served my husband, and almost three months later, I still have not been served!

At the 262 hearing, the DA had three witnesses and then called me. After she called me to the stand, she called a CPS case worker named Mandy Hodde who completely perjured herself. She is a CPS case worker who stated on the record that she was there in Navasota and saw me come to pick up my child, then later she stated she had never seen me or met EL. She was never there. She had received a phone call. 

Her statement was considered proof and conclusive evidence against my husband and me; however, in the final orders, her name isn’t even on the list for being called to the stand. A different caseworker supervisor, Melissa F., is on the order. She was in the waiting room, but she was never called to the stand. How can this possibly be justice for the Wilson family?
They then called CPS worker Caleb, the man who stood at my door and told my husband it wasn’t a home  visit with sheriffs who pointed guns at us. He lied under oath at least three times, and he contradicted himself several times. His words were also considered proof and evidence against my husband and me. Once again, this is not justice.

They then called our caseworker, Kayla, a lady who had never seen or heard anything for herself or anything that she stated on the stand to be facts and truth. Everything she said was hearsay and second hand allegations. These were the three state care employees who used the system to kidnap my children. The Department of Family and Protective Services used these three as “witnesses” that the DA to show “proof” and “evidence” of neglect and abuse. All three of these CPS workers got on the stand and lied more than once objecting to anything said on behalf of my children, my husband or myself. No real evidence or proof was given on behalf of innocence or guilt. Everything was hearsay.

Elanah, my now sixteen-year-old daughter, was also called to the stand and spoke for forty minutes about five years of abuse which never happened. It was horrible. It was heartbreaking, and she had no proof to back up her story. As her mother, I can tell you every single word was a lie as she turned red from the chest up. That is her tell for lying. She looked at the wall and read every word she said. I watched her eyes move back-and-forth as she spoke, and she sounded like a psychologist had prepped her. Not one thing she said had facts or truth.

They called my husband, and of course nobody asked the right questions, nobody listened when he spoke. The Zoom app kept shutting off in the middle of his answers. I’m not even sure if anyone even heard what he said. The scheduled three-hour Zoom had lasted over four hours, so everybody was just ready to end the hearing. Nobody offered one piece of physical evidence against my husband or myself for any type of abuse or neglect. None of our lawyers offered any evidence to prove our innocence.
I have a recording of what happened at the sheriff’s department. I have a recording of what happened with the CPS officers at the sheriff’s department.

I have a recording of my conversation with my daughter at the sheriff’s department. I have screenshots from her phone of her planning to run away a month before she ran away. I have evidence from classmates of her secret phone, her plans to spend Spring Break with her boyfriend, and I have five years of doctor records to prove that none of my children have ever been abused.

I have 15 years of school records to prove that my children have never been subjected to any type of neglect or abuse. We have lived in the same neighborhood for six years and no calls or reports were ever made due to family violence or abuse of my children. My husband is a mechanic and works Monday through Saturday. I am a housewife 24-hours a day, their taxi , nurturer, cook, maid, teacher; I’m the mommy. There is always food in my cupboards, my kids always have clean clothes, and they have never wanted for anything or needed anything that their father and I could not provide. Neither my husband nor I have ever put hands on our children, and my husband does not physically abuse me.

I am coming to you to show the corruption and the railroading that Travis County has shown my family. I an individual asking another individual to see the truth. Nobody has done their job; nobody is protecting our children. Our children were never in harm’s way or any danger, but since being taken the very things we are being charged with have happened to our children, our innocent, beautiful children.

There have been more than fifteen procedures, federal laws, and amendments broken. My family is being bullied and dismantled. I am begging for someone to help save the Wilson children. I pray for the safety of my children. I pray for us to all be in our home together again. I pray that I can undo the damage that my children have been through.

I am asking one person to look at this and see what is happening to my family, and sadly I believe it’s happening to hundreds, maybe even thousands, of families. Our children are being hurt. My children are in immediate danger from the Department of Family and Protective Services and the foster homes they have provided for them to live in.

Please help me get justice for the Wilson children, justice for the Wilson family. Please help me get our babies home. They belong with their mommy and daddy and their brother.
Sincerely, The Family

September 14, 2020 

D-1-FM-20-001841

I sent a letter on June 1, 2020, to you and more than 3000 other people. I would be very grateful if you would take a look at where my family and I are at now. If you know anyone that can help us, I am begging you to send them this letter or let me know what I need to do. 

My youngest daughter, EL, has turned four in the system and started pre-K, and my heart is broken that I, her mother, was not with her for these precious moments. I get two phone calls with her for 30 minutes, and I get one three-hour, in-person, supervised, weekly visit. She is still my warm, beautiful little girl who has now moved to her third foster home. It took two prior homes for her to be placed with foster parents who seemed to be kind to her. It is a relief to no longer have to hear about her fear, sadness, or pain being with people who hurt her. Her only pain now is not understanding why her mother will not take her home, and I am not allowed to tell her that I am trying because this is considered talking about the case and is not allowed. So I am to let her believe that I am doing nothing to get her back with me. She always tells me how much she wants to come home and be with me and daddy, and she misses her brother. I have been forced to send her back to two different homes over the past five months where EL reported that they were mean to her, spanked her, yelled at her, and made her cry over and over again. She was constantly covered in bruises and was only three years old. 

EC is my second youngest. He was not with his little sister in the system even though I was told the children would remain together. Six months into this they still can’t put my babies together. EC has started first grade without me, had his sixth birthday without his family and friends, and has now regressed to the “terrible two” stage where he is throwing tantrums, screaming, and hurting inside. The only reason I can see for this is that his heart is broken. He asks me constantly why his older brother is home and he is not. He wants to know why daddy and I won’t take him home, and once more I am not allowed to soothe my son and tell him the truth, that we are trying.

I get two 30-minute phone calls weekly and one three-hour, supervised visit a week. Last week, my beautiful, six-year-old boy laid on my lap for two hours, and all he could say to me is he wished every day was Friday because that means he would be with me every day. When I asked him if there’s anything he needed or wanted, he said, “I need you.” He doesn’t understand of course why he can’t come home. He doesn’t understand why his brother ER gets to be home with us. He doesn’t understand why EL his sister, doesn’t want anything to do with him. And the state has removed my power to support him, talk to him, and explain the world to my child. Instead, I am to stay silent or lie. How does a mother do this? 

There is so much more I could say in regards to the care of my babies since they were removed. I am so very confused as to why they were removed from my care only to be put into pain, abuse, and confusion. My children have undergone irrevocable damage because the State thought they offered better care than my children received in their home with parents who love them. How is this right? How is this legal? They were removed due to unproven allegations of abuse and neglect with no evidence only to be put in places where they have been abused physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Now they have been neglected, abandoned, confused, alone, and hurt during their key and very crucial years of emotional and psychological development. Four years old and six years old are very important times in a person’s life. It is when you learn what love is. I love my children. I adore my children. I carried those children, and I gave birth to those children. I have spent every waking minute of their life kissing bobos and wiping tears, holding hands, and giving them safety and security and well-being. All of this was taken from me and from them. The system has destroyed all of our lives and possibly permanently damaged their futures. 

I have never, ever done any of the things that I was accused of doing. My husband has never done any of the things that he was accused. The affidavit that this case is based on, and the reason CPS chose to remove my children, is completely untrue. I was told yesterday that I am naïve because I believe that the truth matters. When did the world become such a place? I have never experienced such gaslighting and from my own government no less! Every single thing I have said or done has been twisted and turned by CPS through family court, from false statements, made up stories, point-blank lies, and allegations. The most aggravating aspect is that all the proof I have to show that my home is not dangerous was given to the court but never entered in as evidence! The services I was required to complete were used to show guilt rather than compliance! I am at a loss, and I am looking for help. What happened to innocent till proven guilty?

 Elanah Lynn Wilson, has turned 16 in the system. I have not been allowed to talk to her at all, and therefore, I cannot speak to her safety or wellbeing. The last time I got to speak to her was in the sheriff’s department in March when I went to pick her up after she ran away to be with a boy. That is when she told me that she was three months pregnant. The state has since told me she is not pregnant, had an IUD placed on her body, was placed in psychiatric care and was put on SSRIs.

My daughter has never been medicated before! I tried to send her baby pictures and letters telling her how much I love her and want her to come home. This too was used against me by CPS stating that my interactions and attempts were negatively affecting my daughter and causing an unhealthy emotional state. So now I am told I cannot even love my own daughter or reach out to her in any way. She was on track to go to A&M and had a very promising future. Now, she may be completely lost, and there is nothing I can do. This is torture for a mother who wanted the very best for her daughter. 

I will again state that my daughter, at 15, ran away to a different town with a boy who is legally an adult and whose parents harbored her as a runaway for 14 days! The sheriff’s department would not give me the information to file statutory rape charges or harbor a runaway charge. The state came to interview my child and informed me that I could not bring her home, yet they put in the report that they kept the child due to inability to find the parents. I was sitting in the room waiting for them! I was there an hour and a half before they were there! 

This week we are at six months that my children have been in the system. I am so deeply grateful that my 14-year-old son was sent home in May, but I still have three children sitting in foster care for no reason. I have three children who need their mother and father, who have futures and desires and wants, and I cannot find any one single person who has the power to help me! I am not guilty! My husband is not guilty! I am far from perfect. I have made many mistakes in my life, but I chose 20 years ago to be a parent, and I have given every waking moment of my life to give my children every opportunity to succeed. I am loving, and I am what is in the best interest of the children. We are what is in the best interest of the children! 

I have had three appointed attorneys. My husband has had two court appointed attorneys and two paid attorneys, and now we are out of money trying to fight this. May 14-year-old had two court-appointed attorneys. My four- and six-year-old has had two court appointed attorneys. Everything has been done on zoom, so no real emotion or sense of humanity has been experienced, just faces on screens. 

I am not coming to you because of all the pain that has been endured by my children, my husband, or me. I’m coming to you because everybody keeps talking about the best interest of the children. Where did the government go wrong? Do you think foster care is in the best interest of the children? Multiple strangers, multiple homes, multiple rules, spirit crushing physical abuse, brainwashing through censored communication and lies, and emotional tug-o-war is what is now considered in the best interest of the children? 

I’m only one person. I am just a mom, so I am coming to you as a mom, as a woman who has no criminal record. I have now taken five negative drug tests, three domestic violence courses, eight therapy sessions, a four hour parenting course, and I am still no closer to a resolution. 

My husband and I are innocent of all allegations. The truth is plain and simple. The facts are plain and simple. Sadly my 15, now 16-year-old daughter ran away and made up a story so big as to ensure her autonomy from parental control so she can do what she wants. All my love and bending to her will did not give her more opportunities in life. It made her head strong and resistant to authority. I have made a mistake. I no longer know what she wants, only that, according to the State, she doesn’t want to be here with her family. Her stories are so big that CPS came and took away the children who did want to be here with mom and dad. 

We’ve been in the same neighborhood for seven years. They have gone to all the same schools. I was talking to my son’s, friend’s mother, who is also a teacher at the school where all three of my children have attended throughout the past six years, and when I told her the story of what has happened, tears came to her eyes. She told me she was so sorry. She has known our family for so many years, and there has never been anything she has ever seen or heard to raise an alarm about our family. 

I may be naïve to believe in truth, right and wrong, good and bad, but it’s who I am, and I have to believe there are good people in this world. I have to believe the truth does matter! I can give you school records, doctor records, screenshots of text messages showing that my daughter was planning on running away, that my daughter was seeing an older boy, and my daughter was doing things to hurt herself and her future. We had no idea what was going on in her world. Teenagers and their understanding of technology allows them to live lives completely separate of who they are and do it all from the privacy of their bedroom. She was such a talented academic and goal oriented child, I never thought to check her phone for the type of behavior that was uncovered after she left. 

My guilt is always trusting that my daughter was making the right choices and telling the truth. I don’t see the light at the end of this tunnel. I have learned how corrupt, misguided, unfair, and damaging the Family Court and CPS are. No one wants the truth. They just want to be right. I am a fighter, and I have fought for my children. This has not shown my love. Instead, it has been seen as insubordinate behavior and a further reason to dig in their heels and refuse the release of my babies. MY BABIES. How can they take and keep my own children? No one is fighting for us. I am only told to obey, comply, and maybe I’ll have a chance at a trial. While each act of obedience and compliance takes a piece of my soul, it also gives them one more thing to use against me. I am punished if I fight, and I am punished if I acquiesce. Everything is used to benefit the removal of my children regardless of truth.

The court statements and the reports that have been filed in this case infuriate me! Every day something else happens in this case. Even if it was meant to help us get our children back, it has simply made it easier for everyone else to flip our lives upside down and tear our children away from us. 

The damage that has been done this far, if at all possible to ever be repaired, will take a lifetime of pouring love into my children and constantly proving that I do want them and I did fight for them. I am watching the spirit of joy, love, security, and safety be drained out of my four-year-old and my six-year-old. This is so grossly wrong. The truth should matter. They say, the truth shall set us free. The truth should save us; however, nobody cares about the truth. Nobody will even listen to the truth. 

They keep saying that my husband and I are criminals, yet no criminal charges have been pressed. What’s criminal are the allegations, the fantastical stories of a 16-year-old who does not want to be grounded or reprimanded for disturbing sexual acts, running away, and has now dug a hole so deep, she cannot see a way out of it. If 10% of the allegations she’s made were true, charges would’ve been pressed, and we would be in jail. The fact that my husband and I are sitting at home doing everything in our power to get our kids back should speak volumes. The people my daughter has accused us of being would not be making any effort to restore their family. We are not those people. 

I am asking anyone who believes in right and wrong, good and bad, innocent until proven guilty to please hear my cry! Please look at this case that has had over 62 people involved who all seem to be just covering up what the last person did to benefit the department and save everybody’s jobs. They all know there are mistakes, lack of procedure, and gross negligence on the part of the department. They all know there have been direct perjuries in court, and no one wants to be the whistle blower. No one wants to get these people fired or put in jail for these crimes. So, they keep passing us around to new people who repeat what has already been said without digging into the truth. 

Sincerely, 
The Family

The post Beaten by Foster Dad, Approved by CPS appeared first on Fighter Cries.

I represented my daughter at the hearing and the Judge told the paternal grandmother that the children will not be going to Texas, that they were to stay here with me the maternal grandmother,

He then told her to go back to Texas and not come back until October for the trial.

I was told to go file for guardianship, and when I did, so did the paternal grandmother, she had made false accusations about my daughter and our household.

Without any due process I had to give up all of my grandchildren, the youngest baby girl I had her under my care from birth.

The paternal grandmother and her son didn’t care for her, do to her having a different Daddy, as well as her new born baby who was 2 1/2 months old.

The judge had told my daughter that when she got out of jail she could go and file to end guardianship so she could get her babies back. My daughter did just that and he denied her visitations, he said it was up to her discretion that my daughter had not seen her babies and she had talked to them a couple of times because the paternal grandma didn’t answer or tell my daughter the children hate her or they don’t want to talk to her.

Those babies love their mommy, the paternal grandmother is brainwashing the children’s heads about my daughter, she’s putting fear in them.

This is so devastating for my daughter and terrifying for the children.

My daughter wants her babies back, they were taken wrongfully by the corrupt judges and mediators, when CPS takes your kids they work with you and help you get things done to get your children back but this is bad for someone to just come and take your children, because she’s beneficial to her and her adult kids who all live at home and they don’t work.

I would like to get help getting my children back and to help other families get the help they need and to put an end to our corrupt judges and mediators.

The post Paternal Grandmother Makes False Allegations and Takes Mother’s Children appeared first on Fighter Cries.

The Texas Children’s Commission states that if a family asks for help, CPS is not to get involved except to help the family.(http://parentresourceguide.texaschildrenscommission.gov/)

This same CPI was acting outside of her jurisdiction, violating the color of law as she was from Bell County, and we are in McLennan County. She perjured herself 3 times.

1. Paperwork submitted to court states she went to the house, peaked through our large panel windows (indicative of casing our house), and then the school.

2. Under oath on June 11, 2019, with Ad Litem Amanda Milam questioning her, CPI Jackson testified she only went to the school.

3. During our trial on July 15, 2020, CPI Jackson testified that first, she went to the school, then she went to the house, then she went back to the school. She testified there was no fence around the house and that she didn’t see our dogs, but that there was open bread on the counter. How can she remember open bread, but not something as common as a fence?

We were kept silent throughout the entirety of our case until the very final day of the trial (August 3rd, 2020) in which we testified, had witnesses, showed evidence of perjury, a video of my then 6-year-old child alleged sexual assault by “Those big boys, at the CPS’s House.” My child gave the names of these boys and showed us with her mouth (on video) that they were taught oral sex. The video was submitted to the court. 

On April 15, 2020, Judge Nikki Mundkowsky heard my testimony of said video. She cut the hearing short to have a bench conference with the attorneys and according to my attorney stated, “I believe the mother because this happens in foster homes all the time.” 

On August 3, 2020, I gave a testimonial description verbatim of said video and Mundkowsky was able to view the video. At the beginning of our trial (July 15, 2020) Judge Mundkowsky state:

“This court accepts hearsay.” Although she said she believed me, and viewed the video, heard my testimony, she still terminated our rights based on hearsay and reasons completely unrelated to our case. One reason she terminated our rights was based on “disobeying court orders”

The only written court orders were the family plan, 30-day separation from my spouse, and interactive counseling. The rest were verbal. We obeyed ALL court orders. Completed “protective parenting” classes for which we have certificates. 

Mundkowsky is not only a former CPS attorney, but she is also a former Adoption attorney:

(enclosed is USC 28 455 (a) and (b) where it states if bias is present; the judge must recuse themselves she violated and broke this law)

Mundkowsky is an associate judge who was hired to take care of family court cases by Judge Colley of McLennan county. She also has the duty of swearing in all the CASA.

On September 2, 2020, our caseworker, Kimberly Witt became a CASA advocate supervisor. (As seen in our Snapshot from the CASA of McLennan County Facebook page) Upon doing a background check of our own on Kimberly Nicole Witt, we found that she is a former employee of the Center for Cognitive Behavior Education.

My husband was ordered to take a BIPP class (Batterer’s Intervention and Prevention Program). I offered the Judge evidence proving contrary to allegations regarding spousal abuse. Nikki Mundkowsky denied my evidence and ordered my spouse to attend the program. Kimberly Witt sent him to her former employer, Center for Cognitive Behavior Education. It is to our knowledge that the instructor, Ms. Ludwig knew Kimberly Witt from her previous employment with the center. We did a previous background check on another site, and found a Kimberly Nicole Witt who was investigated by DOJ and other agencies; we are unsure if it is the same Kimberly Nicole Witt who was our caseworker. 

Judge Mundkowsky is presiding over another case in which the mother-Laura Sanchez-Villalon lost her rights to her first 5 children due to meth use. This mother has three more children, including her 2-year-old son who she murdered and dumped in a dumpster. His name was Frankie Gonzalez. She lied to the police, stating she lost him at Cameron Park, then took police to the dumpster she put that innocent baby in. This mother had meth in her system, as did her 3-year-old daughter and 3-month old baby. According to an article we read, Mundkowsky is allowing this mother to maintain a say and rights in her two remaining children’s lives from jail. The judge also sealed this case and it is still open.

My husband ran into Frankie Gonzalez’s paternal grandmother who confirmed that the article was true and that she is not even able to get the court documents. In Texas, anyone can get court documents for a case unless a judge seals it. The grandmother also, informed my husband that Mundkowsky has several complaints about her with the SCJC (State Commission of Judicial Conduct) here in Texas.

On November 19, 2019, Assistant DA Bryan Price violated Spousal Privilege Rule Title 504. He reviewed it in court but stopped at subsection 4. He did not read on to 504 section 4c; (Roman Numeral) I; where it states © Crime against family, spouse, household member, or minor child (i) “proceeding in which a party is accused of conduct that if proved is a crime against the person of the other spouse, any member of the household of either spouse or any minor child;”

Nothing to this day has been proven. Mr. Price then proceeded to entrap me stating, “Well it looks like you have a choice to make, will you choose your husband or your children?” During the same hearing, Judge Mundkowsky violated my 5th amendment right by ordering me to answer a question I pled the 5th to. Stating, “It doesn’t work that way, answer the question, actually I order you to answer the question.” Due to Bryan Price’s violation and entrapment, we lost our representation. That said, I believe our former attorney was colluding with the prosecution to find a way to be removed from the case.

In the weeks prior to the November 19, 2019 hearing, he was complaining about a lack of payment. To piggyback on my child’s allegations of sexual assault at the foster home, known as Fostering Hope, we had our final visit at the DFPS office in Temple, TX on June 5, 2019. When the MALE caseworker came into our room saying it was time to go, my girls started “freaking out” screaming, “We don’t want you, we want our mom and dad!” At our first visit, May 31, 2019, my eldest child informed me that she told the HST; Stephanie (last name unknown) “My daddy would never hurt us.” Upon calling the OCR, it was confirmed that that statement was documented. This was never brought up in court throughout the entirety of the case. I called and reported the wrongdoing many times to Kyle Arnold at the OCR and nothing was ever done. 

On October 1, 2019, my mother placed false allegations of sexual assault on my husband, this is 30 days PRIOR to the reunification goal of October 31, 2019. These allegations were proven false with 2 forensic interviews yielding NO outcries of sexual abuse, as well as an interview my husband did with the sexual abuse hotline, showing the evidence to the worker he spoke to. She met him in person, viewed the evidence, and filled out a summary of findings, as well as changing his status from the accused to the victim. She allowed my husband to follow her to the courthouse and watched her give it to the district clerk. Mundkowksy threw it out because supposedly the affidavit was filled out improperly. On July 16th, 2020 Kimberly testified that not only did our children deny all allegations but that she requested a third forensic interview from LVMPD, and not only did they decline, but they also informed her that they will not be prosecuting.

I have recordings of my child stating they were being physically abused by the male caregiver, recordings of my children crying for their father, as well as more than 20 snapshots showing unlawful recording by CASA of McLennan County-Sonya Cooper, and Anna Futral.

CASA started monitoring all Monday visitations on 04/20/2020. During the trial, Sonya Cooper testified that Hannah Hartman gave her permission to record so she was not required to inform me she was recording. I was in Nevada, Cooper was in TX. Nevada is a 2-party consent to record state and whoever gives permission to do so must be part of that conversation. Hannah Hartman was never a part of our visitations on Mondays so both Hartman and Cooper violated NRS 200.620-200.650 as well as Texas Penal code 16.02. 

The children’s therapist, Hannah Hartman of HOPE counseling in Nevada, also illegally recorded a session I was under the impression was private on April 9, 2020.

She led my daughter into giving me allegations by stating “Tell mommy where it happened, tell mommy when it happened, tell mommy how many times it happened.”

This not only violates HIPPA but this same counselor by recording and not informing me of the recording until the end of our session, also violates NRS 200.620-200.650 as well as Texas Penal Code 16.02. As I was in Texas and she was in Nevada. Nevada is a 2 party consent to record state. She did not inform me until the end which means she violated my right to contest the recording of myself and my children. CASA has also violated the same statutes in both states as she was in Texas and I in Nevada. CASA Advocate supervisor Sonya M. Cooper testified that the therapist gave her permission. What she doesn’t know is that in the state of Nevada, whoever gives permission must be part of that conversation. Hannah Hartman was never a part of the visitation Sonya Cooper and Anna Futral monitored between myself and my children.

My husband contacted the court reporter; Carlee Leger of the 74th District court requesting the minutes from the April 15, 2020 hearing. He received an email from Ms. Leger stating that the hearing was never recorded. 2-3 weeks later I received a thumb drive of the audio recording for the April 15, 2020 hearing that my husband had previously requested. Since then he has tried to make contact with her 3 other times with no response from Ms. Leger. All attorneys have requested the court minutes to no avail. The 74th district court is refusing-through lack of communication-to give us the court documents that we have a federal right to. 

Because of CPS and Judge Mundkowksy, I lost my federal career of 11 years. I started out as a federal Screening Officer and then worked up to a Behavioral Detection Officer. I wanted to do that for a few years and later start my own private investigation business focusing on protecting our military from wrongful suits as well as first responders for the same. Judge Mundkowsky ordered it verbally and then on November 19, 2020, while I was under oath testifying that I got a job closer to home which is what they all wanted,

Judge Mundkowsky stated, “It was pretty stupid for you to leave a good-paying job for a part-time one.” 

These are all the parties we have contacted.

Senator Ted Cruz-nothing they could do

Senator Bryan Birdwell-nothing they could do

State Rep Doc Anderson-3 times, nothing they could do

State Rep Kel Seliger-not in their jurisdiction/district, nothing they could do

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick-nothing they could do

Governor Greg Abbott-nothing they could do

Attorney General’s office-twice-nothing they could do

Congressman Horsford (D-NV)-nothing they could do

Congresswoman Dina Titus (NV)-did not answer the phone nor return my call.

Senator Bob Hall 

State Rep Cody Harris

Texas Supreme Court

President Trump-3 times alerting him to the corruption in Texas. 

US Office for civil rights and liberties-nothing they WOULD do.

DHS (Dept. of Homeland Security)-nothing they could do.

FBI-don’t take these kinds of cases.

OCR (Office of consumer relations)-This agency (TX)  handles case specific complaints about CPS and they did absolutely nothing except side with Kim Witt and CPI Erica Jackson, and inform us that CPS NV colluded with the accused regarding a recording of my daughter claiming abuse by her male caregiver. (I have the letter)

Waco Sheriff Dept.

LVMPD

Austin PD 

THSC-nothing they could do

TPPF-nothing they could do

Parental Rights Foundation-can only give amicus brief

BACA-can’t do anything unless our rights were still intact

I want justice for my family ESPECIALLY my husband and children. My husband for the defamation of character, slander, and sexual discrimination as EVERYONE involved in our case was female. The CPI, CVS, Ad Litem, CASA, Judge. Only males were the prosecutor, our attorneys, and the detective who arrested my husband with what we believe to be a picture of a child’s arm that did not belong to our child because in ALL of our pictures before removal and at the physical visitations show NO BRUISE on ANY of my children’s forearm. The picture was in black and white and did not have any child’s face in it. I asked the detective what my daughter was wearing, he said “A white flower dress.” The daughter he claimed this is a picture of doesn’t have a white flower dress. The Waco Tribune-Herald wrote an article about my husband with minimal to no truth and because of that he has received death threats. My husband was arrested, on April 9, 2020, almost a whole year after the start of our case which was May 23, 2019. He has yet to see a warrant, had his firearm confiscated for reason completely unrelated to the arrest, and was informed by his attorney that the DA did not like how low his bail was set for which was $10,000. So she tacked on another charge and raised his bail to $30,000 without cause.

From: Carlee Leger Date: September 19, 2020 at 5:52:36 PM CDT To: William ODell Subject: Re:  Transcripts Mr. O’Dell, I accept payment via PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, or an old-fashioned check or cashier’s check/money order sent via snail mail.  Please advise as to which method you would prefer.  Typed with thumbs on an iPhone so please excuse typos/brevity. Carlee Léger, CSR On Sep 19, 2020, at 3:15 AM, William O’Dell wrote: I would greatly appreciate a copy of that hearing. Mr. Crosby contacted me and I will be sending him a thumb drive for the recording from Jun 11th. I appreciate the help and will await your reply as to how to work out the payment. Thank you, Mr. William O’Dell From: Carlee Leger Date: September 15, 2020 at 9:46:10 AM CDT To: O’Dell Mr. O’Dell, I received your request of transcripts from Ms. Nichols.  The only date I took a record for other than the final hearing was the November 19th hearing.  The estimated cost for that record is $250 for a two-week turnaround once payment is received.  I will refund any overpayment when I provide you the transcript. If you would like to order the record, please let me know, and we’ll figure out how to handle payment. Mr. Sam Martinez has copies of the transcripts from the final hearing. Sincerely, Carlee Leger, CSR

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The post CPS COVERUP “Children Sexually Assaulted under CPS care; Corrupt judge still terminates the parent’s rights.” appeared first on Fighter Cries.

UPDATES: https://www.facebook.com/LittleVoicesBigOutcries

DONATE: https://gf.me/u/yzhgxv

A terrible injustice has happened to my wife and me, and worst of all, my 2 young children. In fact, this has affected my entire family and everyone in our lives.

My children are, as we speak, are in the hands of the person that my son has made multiple outcries against, their mother and their half-brother.

The definition of an outcry witness

In the United States Law is the person who first hears an allegation of abuse made by a child or another victim of abuse or sexual crime. The witness is legally obligated to report the abuse and may be called upon during the trial proceedings.

My son has now made outcries to 6 nurses, 3 separate visits, at 2 separate hospitals, 2 of those nurses being SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) at Cook Children’s Hospital. These include graphic details given by my son, and he made outcries for his little sister as well. He has also made outcries, of course, to my wife and me, various family members and friends, a supervisor appointed by Family Court Services, and a Play Therapist.

Tarrant County Family Law Court System

My poor children are caught up in the Tarrant County Family Law Court System where the judge and an amicus attorney continue to shut down any and all investigations that begin for my children, in the criminal sense, and handle every criminal situation in the family law system.

This is basically keeping us prisoners in a system that continues to cover the abuse up with no recourse or ability to get anyone on the outside to look at this travesty. To tell you how far this court system has reached to keep this case in silence, I am the parent that is on supervision; oh, it gets worse. My son was moved from the school (more importantly the teacher that he trusted) he was attending when this happened, he has been made to change play therapist, my son told the first supervisor unprompted that  “mommy still hits me in the face” and the court got rid of her, we are on our 3rd supervisor now, it has been 9 months since I have been placed on supervised visits with absolutely no allegations against me whatsoever.

My son made a horrific outcry against his mother in July, 2019.

The court forced me to allow the children to go back to their mother’s. Upon return from their mother’s my son makes his second outcry. This time I would not allow the children to go back and be subjected to that again. I got thrown in jail for doing this.

First person in 22 years

I was told that I was the first person in 22 years to be put in jail for interference with child custody. I was picked up by the Fugitive Task Force, dressed in full riot gear and parked in my entire neighborhood like I was El Chapo.

I was met with an officer in full riot gear with a riot shield and his gun drawn, standing beside him was an officer in riot gear with the battering ram for our front door. Police and task force cars were parked in our grass, driveway, and all over our street. Standing behind the first 2 officers were another 5 to 7 law enforcement that were in green army gear. The officer with the riot shield even threatened to shoot our family pet, a chi-weenie.

The officers dressed in the army gear however took over and defused the situation with the arrest and treated me very civil.

48 Hour Hold

I then had a 48 hour hold placed on me where no one on the outside could get any info on me or find out what was going on. In my holding cell, which is a 10 X 10 concrete room with a toilet. I watched the group in my cell get escorted out every 4 hours to see the judge…. Except for me.

The officers would tell me nothing. And most seemed even more confused than I was as to why I was there and why I’m not moving in the system like everyone else. This continued to go on every 4 hours until around 5 am, where I did not see a judge, but they moved me instead to security level 3 general population jail. My family and support continued to try and get me out, but the jail kept moving me around in the system so no one could find me. My family finally got me out at around midnight the following night.

My son yet made another outcry within 12 hours upon my release from jail to a SANE nurse.

Blood Clot

This day while I was in the hospital with my kids, I started to pee a lot of blood and felt like my groin was messed up. I had too much to deal with and thought that the concrete from the jail and the jail stay had caused it and that it would clear up. It did not clear up and this ended up being a deep blood clot that reached from my pelvis/groin area all the way down the entire length of my leg to my ankle.

I later found out that this was most likely caused by sitting on a concrete floor for over 24 hours in the jail cell. This put me in the hospital where my prognosis was that they would have to amputate my leg at my hip, but that this blood clot had lots of complications and that I did not have a chance of surviving. They must have been wrong. However, after leaving the hospital I did have a long recovery and almost lost my life from blood clots dislodging on more than one occasion.

Polygraph

My wife and I took a polygraph test from a highly regarded polygrapher on the subject of coaching, or knowing of any coaching, for the children to say this. We passed with flying colors. I also took a psych test that scored in the normal range.

What has happened to my children and my family is an absolute disgrace. The fact that the court has placed the children with the abuser 24/7 with little contact with me and no contact with anyone else that loves them is inexcusable. Our entire support system is very scared that this could end in real tragedy if we do not get help soon. We can only thank God that something tragic has not happened yet.

Five year old victim a liar??

Please keep in mind that this is not just a court system calling me, my wife, my mother, my nephew, 2 family friends, 6 professional nurses, 1 professional supervisor placed by the court system, 1 play therapist placed by the court system all liars, but much more shameful than that, the court is calling a five year old boy a liar. As part of the evidence there are also over 50 pictures of physical abuse, testimony of nurses and supervisors, polygraphs on wife and me, a psych test, and testimony from family and friends.

Supervised Visits

I have now been on supervised visits for 9 months. The initial offense happened to my kids 10 months ago. There is no end in sight, and every attempt to do something about the judge, the amicus, to go higher, to reach media have failed. It is imperative that something be done before it is too late for my little boy and little girl.

Desperately seeking help

We are desperately seeking help in any way to save our children. There has got to be checks and balances set into place. A judge, or no one else should be above checks and balances. This, being a court that has the lives of innocent children at stake, looks like there would be many different avenues for children in distress; not just closed doors. This should never happen to any children ever again. Something has got to be done to the criminals that do such cruel acts to children and also the corrupt court system that covers it up.

Petition

We are asking that you please read this, sign the petition, and please pass what’s happening to my children on to as many as possible. Parents should be aware that this could be you, or worse your children. Pray for my children, and all of us involved, that someone step in and take a very close look at this. I can also tell you that we are not the only horror story coming from this court, from this judge, or from this amicus. In fact, the way that we found Change.org, was an email from a woman that was writing in to Change.org about this same attorney that took her children in a similar fashion. Please help us stand up and fight this corruption.

This court, this judge along with her amicus, have successfully managed to shut all doors to any type of a criminal investigation by shutting outside investigations down from the start and keeping investigations “in-house” and behind closed doors. Not a word from CPS, Fort Worth PD, or the (CACU) Crimes Against Children Unit. My kids are trapped with her right now with no one checking in, the court is keeping my son silent as much as the mother is. Someone step up. This is just the latest of a long list of outcries made by my innocent little boy!

Below are detailed accounts of what has happened and the names of all involved.

Continue to read if you want to know more. 

Fort Worth PD Offense #190056581                                                                               C Hughes – Badge #4589, K Lanier – Badge #4586, Sgt. Leach 

Cook Childrens-SANE Nurse – Crystal Baxter-   (682)-885-3953                                                                      **Made outcry

Crimes Against Children Unit-Detective Joshua Rodriquez – Badge #3966,               Sgt DeHoyas (spelling?)

CPS,                                                                                                                                Protective Services Investigator-Cynthia Allen,   (682)-228-8934                        Supervisor-Kelli Bailey (last name?)  (817)-348-1146                                          Family Advocate- Eliza Marentes (817)-348-1108                                        Forensic Interviewer- Mackenzie Phillips (817)-427-3110

Detailed Accounts of What Has Happened

• Friday, June 28, 2019 – Pick up the kids from their mother’s after one week. My wife, accompanies me on all exchanges.
• Upon arrival at home, my son unleashes an earful of being hit, being sucked, being sodomized, & his sister being raped in graphic detail to me & my wife.
• Monday, July 1st, 9 am the kids & I were at the Women’s Center begging for help with our situation & told them our story; 2 hrs there. 
• Arrived at Alliance for Children 11 am & told them our story.  Women’s Center had made contact with them as well.  
• Alliance contacted CPS, & we were to wait in the lobby for a CPS worker to arrive.  Waited 1.5 hrs for CPS.
• Front desk called me up to desk, & advised me that CPS had just called him, & said this case was closed, & we needed to leave.  
• Contacted Ft. Worth PD at approximately 4 pm, & told dispatch our story of the day, & that we were reaching out to report abuse & molestation.  
• Office Hughes & Lanier arrived, heard our whole story, & escorted us to Cook Children’s.  Hughes ordered an exam & interview with a SANE nurse for us.  He waited in the lobby with us the entire time until we were taken back.  He gave me all his info before he left; told me to contact him for anything & told me he had a detailed report of all that he witnessed, my demeanor, & was going to write something in the report no coaching suspected.  
• SANE nurse did an exam.  My little boy made an outcry.  We left around 10 pm.
• Tuesday morning, I was contacted by Detective Rodriquez, & was asked to go to Alliance for Children for my son’s forensic interview.
• After my son’s interview, they interviewed me.  I asked if he made an outcry.  Detective Rodriquez replied “you wouldn’t be sitting here if he didn’t.  We would have asked you to leave.”  
• Detective Rodriquez said he was going to talk to the abusers.
• Cynthia Allen said something along the lines that a safety plan would be in order before the kids had to go back to their mother’s Friday at 6 pm.  
• Wednesday & Thursday with no contact from CPS nor Detective after leaving Rodriquez a voicemail & a couple of text.  After that, still no contact from anyone involved.  
• Friday I am frantically trying to get in touch with both CPS & Det Rodriquez with no response.  Family members & friends start reaching out as well to them in order to ensure the kid’s safety.
• Det Rodriquez finally calls me around 5 pm, & the kids are to be back with their mom in an hour.  I ask him to please let me know what’s happened with the case.  He responded that he hasn’t talked to anyone yet including Cynthia Allen.  I ask him if I have to return the kids, & he replied that’s between me & the judge.  Still no contact from CPS.  
• The kid’s mother picked them up Friday 6 pm.
• Wednesday, July 10th, First contact from anyone is, from Cynthia Allen wanting to do a home visit for the following week when I have the kids.  I told her sure, no problem.  
• I go the rest of the week with no contact.  
• Friday, July 12th, my wife & I pick up the kids at 6 pm.  Immediately, when my son gets in the car, he tells us that he’s been raped & molested all week long, & that his mother & half-brother had been telling him that he better not talk to any teachers or the police anymore.  Told me that his half brother told him that what he & my innocent son were doing was naughty, & that my precious boy would be the one to be in trouble.
• At 6:06 pm, I leave Detective Rodriquez a detailed voicemail of everything that my traumatized boy had just told my wife & me.
• At 8:27 pm, sent Cynthia Allen a detailed text of what my little boy just told me.
• Friday, Saturday, & Sunday nights we reached out to every resource there is for complaints, a hotline, or anything at all to do with child sexual abuse.
• Through this process, I got the name of Det Rod superior, Sgt DeHoyas, & Cynthia Allen’s superior, Kelli Baily, & their contact info.  
• Still no contact from anyone involved.
• Lots of behavioral issues have come up that needed to be reported to someone such as my daughter’s masturbation, extreme sexual behavior of both children.  A lot more graphic details from my precious boy.
• Monday morning, July 15th, Sgt DeHoyas returned my call, & listened to all my concerns.  
• Monday some time Kelli Bailey, with Cynthia Allen at her side, called me.  I gave them an earful; lots of anger on my behalf.  Let them know how extremely dangerous & negligent it was to put the children back in the situation that not only were they being raped & molested all week long, but now threatened by his mother and half-brother about talking to police & teachers.  Cynthia never said a word.  
• Tuesday 8:25 am Det Rod finally makes contact, & I told him the same things I told Kelli & Cynthia.  He told me that was between CPS & me, & that he was doing his job.  
• Shortly after, Cynthia Allen contacted me, & wanted to come meet with me.  I told her that I will not be put in a situation where I would be alone with anyone else in the system without some kind of professionals in this field accompanying me.  
• I made arrangements with the Women’s Center where my wife & I are in therapy in a trauma group for parents & guardians where they know our story well.  
• CPS spoke to my son very briefly with our case manager, Cheryl, standing in the doorway.  
• CPS spoke to me with Cheryl in the doorway, & as you can imagine, I unleashed all my concerns with full anger & anxiety.  EVERY WORD WAS THE TRUTH ON HOW THEY HANDLED THIS; how they’ve always handled this. 
• The kids are exhibiting many disturbing issues. We deal with my little boy’s flashbacks that he has at night quite often as it is, however, it is ramped up quite a bit during these past couple of weeks. One night, my son was crying out for me around 3 am. When I walked into his room he was standing up on his backboard of his bed (bed is shaped like a car and the backboard is a fin of a car) trying to climb the corner of the wall screaming for help. I held him and watched him play out one of the episodes of being molested and sodomized. He kept telling me how they were hurting him back there (him pointing at his anus). This was over around 5 am and he fell asleep in my arms where I took him and put him in bed with us. My little boy and little girl are having to be separated constantly and told about how inappropriate that it is for either one to be putting things (fingers or toes) in each other’s private parts. The kids put toys down their underwear and is trying to get the other to get it. My daughter is constantly bending over or lying beside him on the couch with her butt up in the air pointing at her vagina and telling him to “put it in there”. She even told me one day while sitting beside me to put it in there while pointing at her vagina. We had to go in and separate them one night (they have not bathed together since) because my son was trying to get in position to put his penis inside her while she was telling him to put it in there. My son also killed a lizard outside. I know this last one does not sound like a big deal, but we spend many nights walking our streets so that my boy can save the frogs and June bugs off the street as to not get run over. He never ever hurts anything and is very compassionate for animals and bugs.
• Thursday, July 18, I am cleaning up the house and the kids are always at my side. This time my daughter is playing in her room and my son is in our bedroom hanging up some shirts for my wife. My son walks over to my belt that’s hanging from a clothes hanger and says mommy hits me with this. I said she does? He said yes, me and his sister. I explained to him that I don’t spank him but that I do sometimes spank my daughter. I explained to him that I only use my hand on her bottom and never hard enough to leave any marks. I told him that some parents use belts on the bottom too and that’s ok, but they don’t leave marks.  I asked my son if he knows what marks are, & he said yes, lines.  My brave son said mommy leaves marks. I grabbed a clothes hanger and said does mommy ever hit you with these? My little boy said no, but come in here, he ran into the kitchen and I followed him. He got up on the counter and grabbed the big wooden spoon and the wooden fork out of the utensil holder. He said that mommy hits me on my forehead and all over back here with these (he is pointing all over the side and back of his head), I said, she hits you with these? He said yes, and sometimes I bleed. My son then said that she does that to my sister and the half-brother too.  He said that mom  & half-brother told him not to talk to the police or teachers. Mom said if he talks to the police, he will not see daddy anymore.  I told him to lets stop working and play outside. Outside my son walked up to me and was crying so hard that I could not understand him. He took me over to a lizard that he smashed with a brick. He was crying about hurting the lizard. I explained that its ok, we mess up. Now he knows what it feels like to really hurt something and that it doesn’t seem that he will be doing that again. My brave son then explains to me that his half-brother killed his guinea pig. I stressed my concern. My son then tells me that his half-brother got a sharp knife from the kitchen and cut off one of the legs from his brown guinea pig. He said that the guinea pig started screaming and that he ran out of the bathroom. He said that by the time that his mom got in there that his half-brother had cut off all four legs and that mom cleaned up the blood and threw the dead guinea pig in the trash.
• Friday July 19th, at 10 am Cynthia Allen along with another CPS worker shows up for a home visit, our first one. This outcry to us is now at 3 weeks. She takes pictures of the rooms, fridge, etc. Cynthia Allen refuses to go to my son’s room or anywhere else to talk to my son. My wife and I express to her that we thought that she would be talking to him since no one really has. She said that she does not have authorization to talk to him and that she was closing the case. My wife is in tears and we are asking how can they do that. Cynthia explained to us that the mom was going to be taking the kids to play therapy even after what we have been through with this mother, all of the new concerns, that the mom is threatening him as well and that my son has expressed to us that his half-brother does all of these sexual things to the kids while mommy is away in the community computer room of the apartment but while mommy is touching his pee pee and putting her thumb in his anus that O is in the house and sometimes watches. She said nothing at all and they left.
• We call as many friends and family members as possible on such short notice on a Friday to meet up at the police station in our precinct. We were all pleading for help from the police. They responded fast and we had about 7 officers on the phone. They knew that the mother was to pick up the children at 6 pm and it was 1 pm when this began at the station. They opened up an animal cruelty case for us and contacted CPS to come and talk to my son. We waited, along with the officers to show up for about 3 hours. A couple of the police officers walked over to us and said that they just received a call from CPS, and they are refusing to come out. They explain my rights as a parent and said that they would not take my children from me, that a judge would have to do that. They said if the children were theirs that they would just keep the children and take it up with the judge. We asked the officers if CPS has ever refused to come down for something as serious as this? They all replied no, this is a first.
• I sent a text to Detective Rodriquez explaining to him that my son had been threatened, got molested again all week under CPS safety plan (with the mom assuring their safety?) and had his pet guinea pig mutilated right in front of him. I am not running, he knows where we live, he has my phone number, and that the kids are safe.
• July 24th, a hearing for the mother’s petition for Habeas Corpus was held in the 325th Judicial District Court, Tarrant County, before Judge Judith Wells.  Judge Wells found no evidence of an endangering environment with the mother & returned the children to her care.  She then immediately made an order that the children were NOT to be left unaccompanied with mother’s 15 year old son.  This ruling is wholly inconsistent & contradictory to her finding. 
• July 25th, Wells appointed Lyndsay Newell (again) as amicus attorney, although the appointment of an amicus was not an issue in the days earlier court proceedings.  My legal team explicitly requested that Newell NOT be appointed in this case as substantial evidence questioning the impartiality of Newell was available.  Note: Newell was awarded a judgement on me in excess of $11,000 with payments being set up as child support payments at $350 per month when my child support is only $280. 
• July 26th, legal team filed a motion to recuse Judge Wells.  This in addition to the previous days is all documented with evidence & court proceedings. 
• July 31st, I was arrested by a fugitive task force early that morning.  I was charged with two felony counts of Interference with Child Custody.  The application of this penal code provision is an extreme rarity state-wide.  Most counties even have a written policy against it’s use.  There was a hold placed on my release.  This still remains unexplained. 
• August 1st, I was finally released late this night.  My children were asleep in their car seats when my wife picked me up.  I laid my sleeping children down when we arrived home.
• August 2nd, immediately upon my son’s awakening, he made another outcry to me about more abuse, & being threatened about telling.  I immediately took the children to the police station in Weatherford knowing that I had no help from the Ft. Worth PD, in particular, Detective Rodriquez & Sgt DeHoyas.  They sent me straight over to the Weatherford hospital where my son made 3 different outcries to 3 different nurses.  The hospital sent for the Care Unit ambulance to transport us to Cook Childrens in Ft. Worth so that my son could speak to a SANE Nurse.  My son Yeah made another outcry to the SANE Nurse, Stacey Henley, who later testified of his outcry & even his fear of leaving with his mother.  I was instructed sternly by my attorneys to let the children go back with their mother this day & handle it in court.  They knew they would throw me right back in jail.  This was the last day that I’ve seen my children; at hospitals all day, sitting with my son as he reaches out for help.  Lastly, being the last time seeing him was him being fearful of going back with his mother. 
• My attorney’s, along with my now criminal attorney, Mike Schneider, found out that Detective Rodriquez is the person that put the warrant out for my arrest and sent the Task Force to pick me up. This is the detective assigned to the open child molestation case against mother and half-brother, arresting the protective parent for the children and doing absolutely nothing to protect the children from the people that they have been placed with that the outcries were made about.
• August 9th, attorneys for Mother filed for a temp restraining order seeking to prevent me from seeing my children until the hearing scheduled for August 22nd. 
• August 22nd, Even after presenting 5 outcries to nurses (two being Cook SANE nurses), testimony of one SANE Nurse, testimony of one of the police officers, testimony of both my wife & me of the abuse & outcries, two polygraphs passed with “flying colors” by my wife & me with Eric Holden, one of the most respected polygraphers around, Wells granted the restraining order, & kept me from my children. 
• August 26th, the motion to dissolve my temp restraining order, again with overwhelming evidence against the mother, was denied.  Judge Wells told us she would look over the evidence & give us a final ruling.
• August 27th, received notice from my attorneys that Judge Wells ordered that I have only supervised visits with my children.  

I know that is a lot, but if you want to read even more about my son earlier on, keep reading…..

I received a text back in 2014 from a woman that she was pregnant with my baby. This would later be my precious little boy. She informed me that she did not want to have the baby and wanted to abort him. She said that she knew that I was a great father and wanted to give me the option of keeping him.

I told her that of course I wanted him and that I would raise him by myself, I would figure it out. She and I had a birth plan in place and she would sign him over to me. This did not happen as planned but I did take on full responsibility of the raising of our son solely on my own.

Mother did not want to have anything to do with the baby and did not want to “mess him up like I messed up my oldest son”. All supported by documentation and text from the mother herself. 

The half-brother was her 11 year old son at the time that had a lot of mental problems, including but not limited to, trying to commit suicide at the age of 8 (told by mother), pulling a shank on an Aledo bus full of kids in attempt to kill one, was taken early from his father and kept from him for years, even changed his legal name so that the father could not find them.

My son’s childhood was truly amazing. He flourished beyond most baby’s standards. He was walking at 6 months, he was talking so early, and was fully potty trained at 11 months. 

His mother informed me one day that she was pregnant again and that the baby was mine. I told her that I could not have things as unstable as they were, that she and I had a deal that me and my son would be on our own.

She was instantly mad at me and told me that the unborn baby was not mine after all and the father was someone from East Texas. I told her that was a good thing and that my son and I would be leaving. 

The next morning, the plan was to feed my son breakfast & leave.  During his breakfast, there was a knock at the door, lots of police officers.  One came inside to talk to me while the others stood outside to talk to my son’s mother.  I had no idea what this was about.  The officer with me explained to me that they had received a call from my son’s mother stating that she was being held hostage.  I explained to him that was not true.  After they got my side of the story, they explained to her what being held hostage was, & that this was a civil matter. 

Right when they left, she started telling me that not only was the unborn baby not mine, but that my son was not mine either.  She made up a story, pulled up a guy’s profile on Facebook, & told me he was the father of my little boy.  I told her I know this was untrue, & that he was mine.  She told me she already had a paternity test done on him, but that we needed to get in the car & go get a paternity test right then so that she could take off with my child.  We got in the car & drove down to Walgreens for a paternity test. 

When I got out of the car to walk around & get my son out, she locked the doors, jumped over into the driver’s seat, & proceeded to take off with my son.  I knew that she had done this before, taken a child from the father, & I got on the hood to prevent her from driving off with my son.  I yelled out for people to call 911 as she drove off and down Bryant Irving in Ft Worth with me on the hood.  Cars eventually made her veer off the road, & the police eventually show up. 

After visiting with us quite a while, they decided to contact CPS, & took us all down to the police station.  There, we both told our sides of the story, & the CPS worker said this is a very unusual case for her.  That she had not had a case where the primary caregiver was the father, & the mother not really in the picture.  She said this was confirmed by my side & the mother’s side both.  She set a safety plan in place.  My mom was to be involved. 

I could be with the baby all day until he went to sleep, & then I would have to leave, & could return first thing the next morning, & this would continue this way from Friday, day of incident, through Wednesday, until we were assigned a case social worker & get things filed at the court.  On Monday, after hours, my mom & I received a call from CPS telling us that we were to load my son up & bring him down to the CPS office by Ridgemar Mall in Ft. Worth.  They gave us no explanation.  They told us to have him there immediately, or a sheriff would come pick him up. 

We loaded my son up in the car seat & drove him down to the CPS office as directed, & we would surely clear this up once we got there. 

As soon as we arrived, there was a woman waiting outside, we later found out was our social worker (she never identified herself).  She walked into the CPS office in front of us, & then had three people waiting.  We walked into the first locked door to another locked door, & the social worker explained to me that they would be taking my son to the back room.  She walked up to me, grabbed my little boy out of my arms, handed him to someone else, & they walked off.  She didn’t let us into the second locked door.

Then she explained to my mother & me that my son was going to live in Houston with his mother & her brother.  I argued with them, letting them know that she’s never raised him, & doesn’t even know his schedule.  That my son doesn’t even know this uncle, & why in the world would they be letting him go to Houston to live, & away from me; what do I do?  They told me to calm down, that they were recording this, and that they would call the police if they had to.

My mother and I were dumbfounded. Told them that this is kidnapping and that she has done this before. They explained to me that there’s nothing I could do about it, & that’s what was happening.  They pushed us out the door, locked the doors.  My mother & I were lost at what to do, so we called the original CPS worker that came to the station & set the safety plan up.  We explained to her what just happened at the CPS office, & she said that was impossible; they’d never do that, & that it’s not their protocol.  She asked me what happened for CPS to step in on Monday.  I told her nothing at all; that they called to tell me to bring my son to the office immediately.  She told us we could call the police & gave us the complaint’s number for CPS.  We called both, as well as reached out to anyone we could think of to stop this. 

This was my first run-in with how crooked CPS is. 

For the next 33 days, I had to hire an attorney, hire a private detective to track down my son’s mother to serve her papers to bring her back to Ft. Worth for court.  This was the first time for my son & I to be separated since he was born.  I called CPS, CPS Complaints, the social worker, her supervisor, her manager, & received no help from any of these mentioned. 

We finally tracked her down, & brought her back for court, where we started a 50/50 possession schedule.  Abuse was evident from the very start in her care.  My son was having terrible diarrhea immediately upon pick up from his mother’s house.  When it was evident that it was only upon pick up from his mother, I reached out to her to please stop doing whatever she’s doing to my son to cause this diarrhea.  We were also assigned an amicus attorney Lyndsay Newell, that I was to report all concerns to.  I contacted Lyndsay about this diarrhea when it didn’t stop.  I also told Lyndsay about how horribly deformed my son’s stomach would be upon pick up from his mother’s & would be gone after a bout of diarrhea through the night.  This went on for the next year & a half with my son.

My wife, started living with us when my little boy was around 16 months old, and while his mother was 7 months pregnant with my daughter.  My wife also lived and witnessed all of the following and was present at all court hearings. She also started accompanying me on all exchanges of the kids 3.5 years ago out of fear of the many different extraordinary lies that she would tell, and the people that we were reaching out to believed her. 

My daughter was born in July 2016.  I wanted to be part of the baby’s life, but her mother made that extremely difficult.  I paid for the paternity test but their mother refused to take my daughter in for testing and disobeyed court orders several different times and kept me from seeing my daughter. We finally got that done when my little girl was about 3 months old, she robbed us of special time.

During this time, my son is starting to show signs of physical abuse. He had knots and bruises on his head all of the time and would flat out say that mommy does it, and would show my wife and I how she does it with his hand.

We reported all of our concerns to Lyndsay Newell as instructed by the court and by my attorney. She never responded.

My attorney, Jeff Branch, would instruct us to document and start taking pictures. We started taking pictures and documenting, as well as, sending these pictures to Lyndsay Newell. She received many pics of belt marks, black eyes, knotted and bruised up foreheads, horrid diarrhea pics along with the huge extended guts.

The added bonus now of having my kids asleep upon arriving to pick them up at 6 pm until the next mid-morning of 9:30 am to 11 am (between 13.5 to 17 hours upon pickup from their mother’s). Sleeping children with horrible diarrhea. Reported all of this to Lyndsay Newell. Even after receiving many disturbing pictures of abuse, along with our concerns and behavioral issues in the children, the outcries of abuse that my son was telling us about, countless pleas for help, she never came out.  Not one of the many pics that you will see did she check on. I paid for a court investigation to get under way. We were assigned, by our Judge Judith Wells, Crystal Baird as the court investigator. I pleaded for help from her. My wife and I both talked to her and showed her an abundance of overwhelming evidence that abuse was clearly happening. We told her all that my son tells us. The rest will just be in the affidavits and part of our interrogatories that is in a more factual basis.

Interrogatories August 2019

1/15/18 Monday – I picked up the kids at 6 pm.  Both kids were knocked out.  This is a normal routine for my little girl & hit & miss for my little boy.  My daughter slept until 10 am the next day.  My son woke up around 9 pm.  As soon as he woke up, he looked at me with the face that he’s only had when he’s been assaulted.  He would try to play & smile & be normal, but then would get this look back on his face again. 

I knew this meant he had been assaulted again, but this time he’s being vocal about it.  I immediately told him let’s go take a bath, & it would make him feel better.  Again, he was trying to avoid having to take his clothes off.   He was very leery of letting me see his butt.  I asked if his bobo was ok, & he told me no with a very ashamed look on his face.  Then he began telling me over & over that someone hurt him right here & showed me his anus. 

My wife started videoing our conversation until I became too emotional.   When we turned the phone off, I held my poor boy for quite a while.  He held me tightly while he cried.  I always assumed that this was either his brother or his uncle.  I never dreamed this was his own mother sexually abusing him.  While I was holding him, I was trying to think of a way to get him to communicate who was doing this to him without straight asking him.  I asked him what he did this weekend.  He said he was at his mother’s house.  I said did you go to uncle’s house, & he said no.  I asked if he went anywhere fun this weekend, & he said no.  He then looked up at me with his lip quivering & said Mommy did me while pointing at his butt.  I said mommy does that to you, & he said yes.  I asked if his mommy does that to his sister too, & he said no.  I said “only me”, & he said “uh huh”. 

I notified my attorney & started talking about getting a plan into action.  The kid’s behavior was horrible all week (understandably).  I notified my counselor on Wednesday & sent her the video.  I also sent my attorney the video & have now also sent it to Lyndsay Newell.  When I picked up the kids on Friday, both kids fell asleep quickly. 

We dropped by our apartment & picked up old, frozen diapers (frozen to be tested for any kinds of drugs, chemicals).  We researched & found a rape hospital, so we took the kids to Harris downtown.  We notified the front desk that we were there for sexual abuse on my son, & drugs being given to both kids.  We wanted the police & CPS notified, for my abused son to be examined, blood work for both kids, & diapers to be examined.  They were fantastic, & finally it seemed like someone was listening & cared.  We went through a lengthy process & told the story many times.  Everyone treated us like we were victims, & it really seemed like we were going to get help. 

Around 11 pm, they notified us that they were going to send us over to Cook Children’s to get the exam because they couldn’t do an exam on a child.  As soon as we got to Cook Children’s, everything changed. 

We got the same treatment that I’ve received every time I’ve reached out for help which is doors closed, & don’t want to hear it.  The doctor gave me a few minutes of her time, looked over the children quickly, & sent us on our way.  I asked if she could do a proper sexual exam, & she said she saw nothing to make her need to perform an exam on my poor boy.  She didn’t see any reason for blood work nor to test the diapers.  I called 911 in the lobby, & the same police officer came up.  I told him there has to be something that can be done; they’re sending us out the door.  He told me it was the doctor’s call. 

Saturday, I contacted Ft. Worth police department, & asked for someone to come out & make an official report on sexual abuse.  Four officers came out.  Two of which were in my apartment the whole time.  These two officers really listened & seemed to be concerned.  They watched the video & looked at pictures & said that something was definitely going on.  They could see a cut & abrasions on my son’s rectum & said that he would make all the proper notes in his report.  He said that an investigator would be in contact with me on Monday. 

This was the sexual abuse reported above. 

As far as suspecting their mother of giving my daughter something to make her sleep upon most all pickups, was almost every exchange.  As far as suspecting their mother of giving my daughter something to make her have massive diarrhea, was almost every exchange.  CPS nor hospitals were ever contacted because we had an amicus attorney & a court investigator.  Both were contacted on the abuse, & neither ever came out & checked on the children.  As far as my poor boy telling my wife & me of physical abuse done to him, was almost at every exchange.  This was reported to these two hardworking investigators, Lyndsay & Crystal.  Again, these two never came to check on the kids.

***UPDATE 04/06/20***

We have gone from July to now, begging for justice for my poor boy and precious daughter from this court. Instead, the court punishes my wife and I, and worst of all, punishes the kids and leave them in danger. The court puts the parent that has never had allegations of any kind with the children, in fact, the one that tries to get my son and daughter help, on supervised visits. The court then places the children with the mother that my son has made multiple outcries against…..full time with no breaks.

Allowed the mother to change schools, his teacher. Forced us to change the play therapist that my son knew, and replaced her for a play therapist that the amicus attorney picked. Has changed supervisors now 4 times, my son & my daughter start over with each one.

Ignore testimony of a supervisor that testified in court that on her very first supervised visit with the kids & me that my son said at the end of his visit that he did not want to go back & his mother still hits him in his face.  Keep in mind, it had been 36 days since I had been allowed to see my children. 

With no explanation, the court gets rid of this supervisor with not a single attorney on either side asking for removal.  Ignore testimony that my son shows such fear when having to be returned to his mother that he once drew blood on the supervisor’s arm by holding onto her so tightly while she buckled him into his mother’s car.  Ignore testimony of a sexual assault nurse testifying that my poor son seemed fearful of his mother, & that she would not have let the children go back with their mother if not for the police instruction.  Ignore testimony of a police officer testifying that the opposing counsel was on the phone during my son’s latest outcry discouraging the police involvement, & in fact, ordering for the children to be taken by their mother while they restrain me in the back.  We have been trying to get the supervision removed, & instead, a proper investigation on the mother since August.  I had no where else to turn besides to try & reach out to the public & get as many to read my son & daughter’s story as possible.  I received a text today letting me know that the amicus & the opposing counsel was demanding for me to take this petition down.  I will not be surprised if they try to arrest me soon to shut me up.  Please don’t focus on me; they have shut my son up for way too long.  I am not taking this down.  We need someone that can help to read this, or we need someone to read this that knows someone that can help.  Please read my son & daughter’s story.  Please share with as many people as possible in every way.  This may sound like the craziest sh** that you’ve ever heard, but these could be your kids, & you can fact check every word.  There is a paper trail on every single bit of this; I have made sure of that.  I even have emails of CPS workers that were very helpful until after they got off the phone with this amicus attorney.  Any time that the amicus gets involved, any investigation stops.  We need help because this is the court, & there are absolutely no checks & balances.  The court is just learning of this petition today, & this court will move very fast at trying to enforce me to take it down.           

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The post Child Abuse, Outcries for Help, Passed Polygraph Tests & Court Calls Child A Liar appeared first on Fighter Cries.

Our family was attacked by the state of Texas. Two CPS social workers showed up to our new rental home on Digby Lane at Approximately (11:20 pm) 23:20 hundred hours. Assisted by six Randall County Sheriff’s deputies, demanding our daughters with NO court order and NO warrant!

There was no warning and the accusers were my own extended family!

The allegations were two counts of aggravated sexual assault on a minor!

Our daughter DENIED these allegations and fought to stay home. Our other three daughters were also taken including our 18 month old baby girl who was still nursing! We were forced to surrender our daughters or we would be shot! We were threatened with police brutality and abuse of power.

Yet the complaints fell on deaf ears!

The Steps we were willing to take….

My Husband and I lived in our cars trying to save money to hire an attorney who would fight for us. We fought the justice system constantly, only to lose our parental rights on June 5th 2018!

My husband had NOT gone to trial as the DA was still trying to find evidence against him! The DA at this time had trumped up some 12 new charges and we were still waiting to go to trial…

We lost EVERYTHING our animals, our home, our daughters, our dignity, our reputations were ruined and NO ONE believed my husband was innocent!

This story has NOT ended…

I will say that even though FIVE reports lead by investigations on me have been filed. NONE of them show ANY guilt on me!

I also have a DCS case as I went to Indiana to save my unborn son.

I returned to Texas to support my husband in his criminal trial and to continue the fight with CPS for the safe return of my daughters.

DFPS called me in February 2020 and stated by ALL their findings I SHOULD have ALL my children!

But they adopted my daughters out anyway.

Court on July 21st, 2020

I have court on July 21st 2020 Because I filed a petition to have my rights reinstated and the adoptions of my daughters to be reversed.

There is NO physical evidence as my husband is INNOCENT! The only evidence they had is my daughter’s testimony against her father.

But the BRIDGE interview that the DA ultimately used as the evidence was NOT shown to the jury because there is NO out cry from my daughter in it.

Our daughter, in the beginning of this investigation professed her daddy’s innocence and begged to be returned home. After being tortured by a SAIN nurse and threatened our eldest daughter has changed her story!

NONE of the statements made by the specialists match.

I was NOT allowed to testify! Neither was my husband.

Please, let me share my story!

The post Veteran Family Torn Apart Because of Military Affiliation and Disabilities! appeared first on Fighter Cries.

Watch as this man fights to protect his family.

Follow Dad vs CPS:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChI_AjKD4WlBZ9shPu8uGuw

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Justice For Joshua Brown

When you watch this video, it does look like the Police & CPS are colluding to take this mans child. You be the Judge, watch.

Latest Police Encounter

More About Joshua Brown

Visit YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChI_AjKD4WlBZ9shPu8uGuw

Video #1: CPS and Police get OWNED

Video #2: CPS and Police get OWNED

Video #3: CPS and Police get OWNED

The post VIDEO: Police & CPS May Have Been Caught Colluding To Take Child appeared first on Fighter Cries.

Our family; like all of yours has gone through hell throughout our case.

Lies, deceit, violations of a completely defiant proportion has separated us from our precious children. False allegations, parental alienation, collusion and confirmation bias cloud the waters along with a dangerous cocktail of non-objective observers.

I am in a constant state of panic with heart palpitations, nightmares, sleep paralysis and fear. I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD, Severe Anxiety, major depression and I suspect chronic trauma. Chronic trauma is said to be difficult to diagnose but upon researching, I have found it is highly likely that I suffer from that.

My children cry for us all the time and don’t understand what’s happening and why it’s out of our control, why mommy and daddy can’t do anything, and why we can’t rescue them.

I have reported claims more times and to more people than I care to count.

We can’t wipe their tears. Can’t hold them and tell them it’s gonna be ok. We can’t play games and go on family outings. We have missed all of their birthdays and about to miss my eldest child’s birthday a second time (July 16th) we will also be in our trial on her birthday. What a way to celebrate.

I have moments where the fear takes hold of me and my chest aches. Hyperventilating until I’m dizzy. Crying so hard that my face gets swollen. The pain and anguish is something unbearable. What’s worse though and hurts more is the pain and heartache we know our children are suffering.

The way I see this trial is we have two weeks until our family is destroyed. Two weeks to be able to have FaceTimes with our children and two weeks to enjoy their brilliance.

I am absolutely heartbroken. Our children were the loves of our lives before they were even conceived. We wanted them so badly. We wanted them so we could shower all the love we have on them. Have we made mistakes; yes, every parent makes mistakes. We are far from perfect.

If you were to ask my children what is one thing we tell them all the time, they would say, “That you love us.” They’ve said it so many times before.

Proof of Collusion in paragraph 4

I have read so many painful stories, heartbreaking losses and wrongful accusations.

In the effort to remain as transparent as possible. . . I need help. I need it because I’m on the cusp of losing myself. Losing my will, and losing my livelihood, my drive. There is nothing in this world I would not give up for my children. If I was told to leave everything behind, my house, my car, my belongings, even those of sentiment, I would if it meant we’d get our precious babies back.

Please. . . If there is anyone out there, save us. Help us protect our family. Help us protect other families but most of all, help us protect our children. I want to knock on their door and beg them for my children back. I know it would do nothing but. . . I’d try.

Forgive the ugly picture but this is what has happened to me. Before and after posted.

Moms and dads we side with you and we fight with you. All our love.

#fightercries

The post What CPS Has Done To Our Family appeared first on Fighter Cries.

REUTERS ILLUSTRATION/Jason Schneider

Secretive and cozy judicial oversight systems enable judges to subvert accountability in many states. Exhibit A: Oklahoma, where not a single judge was publicly disciplined in 14 years. When the state finally did charge a judge with wrongdoing, he was allowed to resign, his record pristine and his pension intact.

By MICHAEL BERENS and JOHN SHIFFMAN in BARTLESVILLE, OKLAHOMA

Filed July 9, 2020, 10 a.m. GMT

District Court Judge Curtis DeLapp was renowned for his hair-trigger temper. Mispronounce his name, come to court a few seconds late, fail to rise as quickly as he’d like – no slight was too small to set him off.

For almost a dozen years, DeLapp used his power to terrify people who appeared before him, pressing contempt charges against defense attorneys, prosecutors and even a prospective juror who brought children to court when she couldn’t find daycare, court records show.

Another juror was fined $340.70 after she objected to how DeLapp was treating people who appeared before him. “I never want to be a juror or ever go back to court again,” said Carolyn Duffey Love, now 68. “He treated me like a dog.”

In 2015, DeLapp grew incensed when he learned someone had dropped sunflower seeds in his courtroom, according to witnesses. After scouring footage from a courtroom security camera, the judge summoned a spectator to his chambers, charged her with contempt and ordered her jailed for four days.

Local attorneys had grown convinced that DeLapp was violating the state’s judicial conduct code by abusing his authority. But they felt it would be futile to file a complaint with the Oklahoma agency that investigates judicial misconduct, because the state hadn’t filed charges against a judge for misconduct since 2004. The lawyers also say they worried that crossing DeLapp risked retaliation against both them and their clients.

Not until 2018 – after DeLapp sentenced courtroom spectator Randa Ludlow to nearly six months in jail for talking to her boyfriend during court – did local lawyers find the courage to act.

They enlisted a lawyer from 50 miles away who seldom practiced in DeLapp’s courtroom. And they worked collectively to build a voluminous complaint alleging that DeLapp had unlawfully jailed not just Ludlow but also many dozens of people in the prior two years alone. The complaint also contained an explosive charge: that the judge may have fabricated a court document to justify jailing Ludlow. 

Had DeLapp fought the charges, he risked more than disgrace. If it could be proved that he submitted a forged document to the supreme court, he might land in prison.

Instead, DeLapp, 53, struck a deal. He resigned and agreed never again to seek office as a judge. The case against him was dismissed. His state pension and law license remained intact. And DeLapp received a written assurance that neither his departure nor the settlement constituted an admission to the “validity of any of the allegations.”

In leaving the bench, DeLapp became one of at least 341 judges across the United States to escape punishment or further investigation in the past dozen years by resigning or retiring amid misconduct allegations, Reuters found.

DeLapp, who is still practicing law in Bartlesville, declined to comment. In court documents, his attorney said the former judge denies any wrongdoing.

The DeLapp case shines a light on one of the most opaque and dormant judicial disciplinary systems in America. In Oklahoma, repercussions for wrongdoing have been so unlikely that judges could behave with impunity.

Although each U.S. state has a judicial oversight agency to screen and investigate misconduct complaints, their powers are often limited. In most states, the ultimate disciplinary authority over a judge rests with other judges.

In Oklahoma, the chief justice wields enormous discretion over judicial misconduct cases. After the state’s Council on Judicial Complaints completes a confidential investigation of a complaint about a judge, the chief justice has the power to handle discipline privately – except in rare cases serious enough to justify removing the accused judge from the bench.

During their tenures, two former state supreme court chief justices told Reuters, about one or two wayward judges a year were quietly summoned to the supreme court. There, they received a tongue-lashing behind the closed doors of the chief justice’s chambers. No official record was kept of those meetings, the justices said.

As former Chief Justice Joseph Watt put it: “I’d much rather woodshed my brethren in private and not in public.” He added: “How does that judge feel, knowing he’s being taken to the woodshed in front of God and everybody?”

Confidential justice for judges is common in America. At least 38 states – Oklahoma among them – issue private sanctions when judges misbehave. The name of the judge remains secret, and most of these states keep from the public details of the transgression and the discipline. At a minimum, most states release summary statistics of how many judges are privately disciplined each year. Oklahoma doesn’t make that information public.

This practice – law professor Stephen Gillers calls it “judges judging judges” – undermines the system’s ability to prevent misconduct on the bench.

Gillers said the killing of George Floyd, the Black man who died in May under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, has fueled concerns about how judicial misconduct is handled, too. “The public has been alerted as it never has been before to the way police misconduct is concealed,” said Gillers. “The same is true for judges.”

When judges are the ones evaluating misconduct by other judges, they “tend to be more sympathetic, more understanding, more forgiving” to their own, said Gillers, a scholar on judicial ethics who teaches at New York University.

Privacy also robs the system of a deterrent effect: Concealing the punishment fails to discourage bad conduct by other judges, who may never learn of the consequences, Gillers and other ethicists say.

That’s precisely the dynamic that played out in Oklahoma, local lawyers say. Until Chief Justice Douglas Combs petitioned for DeLapp’s removal, Oklahoma hadn’t publicly filed misconduct charges against a judge in 14 years – the longest stretch of inaction of any state in recent decades.

In its investigation into judicial misconduct across America, Reuters sought to quantify the personal toll inflicted by judges who break the law or violate their sworn oaths. Over a dozen years, Reuters found at least 5,206 people who were directly affected by a judge’s misconduct. The victims ranged from individuals who were subjected to racist, sexist and other abusive comments from judges to those illegally jailed.

“This is a broken system that absolutely empowered judges like DeLapp to operate with impunity,” said Josh Lee, the out-of-town attorney who led the effort to rein in DeLapp. “For more than a decade, not a single judge was publicly disciplined. What kind of message does that send?” Lee said that DeLapp “had no reason to fear that anyone would stop him.”

Masking misconduct

The state of Washington is among a dozen states that handle judicial discipline more openly.

In 1989, Washington voters abolished the practice of private sanctions. Since then, every case brought against a judge by the Washington judicial conduct commission is made public. Reiko Callner, the commission’s executive director, said judges should be treated the same as anyone who appears before them.

“The norm is that anything that happens in a court has the name of the participants on it – the names of a criminal defendant, the crime victim, people involved in a lawsuit,” Callner said. “Why should a judge who has been found to have violated the code that governs their conduct be allowed to keep that fact from the public?”

Many state commissions say there are sound reasons to discipline judges privately. “It’s quick, it’s inexpensive and you don’t have to hold a public hearing,” said Cynthia Gray, director of the Center for Judicial Ethics at the National Center for State Courts, an independent nonprofit research and training organization.

Often, Gray said, states see benefits to keeping matters confidential. “If it’s one-time, minor misconduct by a judge, and the judge shows remorse, you can issue a private sanction or letter and then move on,” she said. That means commissions can focus “on the judges who are out there committing patterns of misconduct and are fighting every step of the way.”

Still, a Reuters investigation found that private discipline has been used to mask significant violations of the law. For example, in 2018, state records show, a Texas judge failed to “maintain professional competence” and illegally jailed indigent defendants. And in 2017, a California judge engaged in sexual harassment and showed a “lack of candor” when accused of misconduct, records show. Neither their names nor their punishments have been made public.

In Colorado, the judicial commission has publicly disciplined four judges since 2008 but has privately sanctioned 52. Among those whose names and other identifying information remain hidden from the public: judges disciplined for sexual harassment, for drunken driving, for delayed rulings, and for demonstrating a “pattern of errors in handling trials or issuing rulings that indicate a lack of competence.”

Granting anonymity to rogue judges is routine.

A Reuters examination of judicial misconduct nationally identified 3,613 cases from 2008 through 2018 in which states disciplined judges in private, withholding from the public details of their offenses – including the identities of the judges themselves.

Over the same period, 26 state oversight councils resolved more judicial misconduct cases privately than publicly, the news agency found. In Massachusetts, for instance, reviews of judicial conduct commission annual reports show that about 9 in 10 judges disciplined were privately sanctioned.

Some judicial oversight agencies take their independence and secrecy to extremes.

California’s oversight agency went to court to try to prevent an audit of its records, a review that ultimately discovered sloppy investigations of judges. In Illinois, the agency misplaced or lost hundreds of complaints, which have not been recovered or investigated.

Kathy Twine, who directs the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board, declined to comment on the lost files. Twine also would not provide routine complaint and investigation statistics to Reuters – statistics disclosed to the news agency by almost every other state. “We’re like an island,” the official said. “We don’t have to disclose anything.”

A comparison between Oklahoma and a state of similar size highlights the discrepancies in how judges are treated.

From mid-2004 to mid-2018, Oklahoma did not file misconduct charges against any of its 600 judges, Reuters found. By contrast, the state of Mississippi – with virtually the same code of judicial conduct and almost the same number of judges – publicly sanctioned 75 judges in the same period.

“I’m sure every state would like to think it has a judiciary that is above reproach, but every profession’s going to have a few bad apples,” said Darlene Ballard, who retired last week as director of the Mississippi commission. “It sounds like other states like to keep their problems in-house so that it appears to the public that they don’t have any bad judges.”

Steve Scheckman, who investigated misconduct cases in Louisiana and New York, said states that report so few cases are failing in their primary mission: to defend, before the public, the integrity of the justice system.

“To think that there’s no misconduct in your state, you’re either really naive, in denial or protecting people,” he said.

Former Oklahoma Justice Steven Taylor disputes such characterizations. Taylor, who served on the state’s top court from 2004 through 2016, said he was proud that the state had so few cases of public discipline. To him, the small number of cases doesn’t demonstrate weak oversight. It shows “a judiciary in Oklahoma that is ethical, doing their work and highly disciplined.”

“If we had 60 or 70 cases, I would be ashamed or embarrassed,” Taylor said.

As chief justice in 2011 and 2012, Taylor recalled, he visited the Washington County courthouse in Bartlesville, where he met Judge DeLapp and others. Taylor said no one mentioned any concerns about how DeLapp ran his courtroom.

But Reuters identified scores of contempt charges issued by DeLapp in traffic and other cases before, during and after Taylor’s time leading the bench. Some dated back a decade. In 2008, for instance, DeLapp charged a defendant with contempt for “being vocal” after the man protested because he had “no money to pay towards his fines & court costs,” according to a court record.

“To think that there’s no misconduct in your state, you’re either really naive, in denial or protecting people.”Steve Scheckman, who formerly investigated misconduct cases and now represents accused judges

Taylor said he was “extremely disappointed” when he heard in 2018 that DeLapp had acted so inappropriately for so many years. He also was surprised that lawyers had remained silent for so long.

“Why didn’t someone report this?” the former justice asked.

The local lawyers who kept quiet for years offer a simple answer, rooted in the state’s desire to keep judicial misconduct secret: An unchecked judge has the ability to cow his community.David Sachar, director of the Arkansas Judicial Discipline & Disability Commission: Without transparency, the public sees “a whitewash.”

In Bartlesville, the Washington County seat, four judges hear criminal and civil cases, with traffic infractions representing the bulk. The city of 36,000 is an hour north of Tulsa. The courthouse is convenient for visitors, who park for free just steps from the entrance. It also is an easy place for a judge to escape scrutiny.

That’s because in Washington County and thousands of other courtrooms nationally, there is no requirement to record or transcribe most proceedings. Employing a stenographer or recording the proceedings is considered too expensive and largely unnecessary for the assembly-line pace of misdemeanor cases that make up most of the court’s business.

This lack of an official and detailed record posed an obstacle to the local attorneys alarmed by DeLapp’s behavior. Absent transcripts or recordings to corroborate their concerns, six lawyers told Reuters, they worried that a complaint alleging misconduct would come down to their word against the judge’s.

The local lawyers say they felt vulnerable to reprisal. DeLapp wielded authority to appoint attorneys to cases involving indigent defendants. They say the per diem pay for this work made the difference for some lawyers between insolvency and eking out a living.

That explanation bothers Taylor, the former state high court justice. “It’s sad that the lawyers were intimidated,” Taylor said. “Part of the hallmark of being a lawyer is speaking truth to power. They should have spoken up.”

But many of those lawyers say they weren’t simply concerned about themselves. They worried that, if DeLapp got wind of a complaint, he might take it out on defendants as well. “It’s not just your livelihood at stake. It’s also clients,” said defense attorney Marty Meason, who practiced before DeLapp and once ran unsuccessfully against him for district judge. “Nobody wanted to take on the system.”

That changed in early 2018, when DeLapp ordered Randa Ludlow jailed for five months and 27 days in jail. Her alleged offense: talking during court with her boyfriend, a traffic defendant. Ludlow declined to comment.

The sentence seemed outlandish to Meason and other lawyers who had questioned DeLapp’s behavior for years. They suspected DeLapp broke the law by failing to afford Ludlow a hearing to challenge the contempt order, violating a basic constitutional right. They also believed he’d failed to properly document his reasons for jailing her. Whether DeLapp followed proper procedure in punishing Ludlow would become a key component in the misconduct complaint against him.

A few days after Ludlow was jailed, the lawyers decided to reach out to Lee, an attorney whose office was about an hour’s drive from Bartlesville – and thus had less to fear because he didn’t regularly appear before DeLapp.

Lee remembers the call his firm received from a Washington County lawyer. The message was clear: You have to help us stop this judge.

“Everyone feared retaliation,” Lee said. “I worked far enough away that I might be safe. Plus, I was the only one crazy enough to do it.”

A disputed document

About seven weeks after DeLapp had jailed Ludlow for contempt, Lee sought her release by filing a writ of habeas corpus with the state supreme court challenging her detention. The high court quickly heard the case in Oklahoma City.

At the hearing, DeLapp told the court that he had been unable to locate the specific document legally necessary to jail Ludlow. In the document, called a Contempt Court Minute, judges must lay out the rationale for the order. The document must also be time stamped and signed.

Shortly after the supreme court hearing, DeLapp notified the high court that he had located the missing record. Nonetheless, the high court voided DeLapp’s contempt order, and Ludlow was immediately released.

The case as it related to Ludlow was over. But now, Lee had grown suspicious of DeLapp, in particular the judge’s claim that he had so quickly located the missing Contempt Court Minute he used to justify jailing Ludlow. When DeLapp produced the missing Contempt Court Minute, the document seemed odd, Lee recalled.

It included a stamp that made no sense. It was dated two days before DeLapp claimed to have created the document. In other words, it appeared to be backdated, and poorly at that.

Lee wondered: Had DeLapp fabricated the document because one had never been filed in the first place? In late March, Lee received a call from Meason, the Bartlesville attorney who was quietly helping him build a misconduct case against DeLapp and harbored similar suspicions.

“I found the evidence,” Meason recalled telling Lee. “We’ve got him.”

DeLapp, Meason explained, had often used security cameras to monitor the conduct of people in the courthouse. He had used footage from one camera to identify the sloppy sunflower-seed eater.

There was also a security camera in the clerk’s office. Playing a hunch, Meason went to the sheriff’s office and requested a copy of weeks of video beginning in February 2018. To his surprise, he said, a staffer quickly handed over the footage on a flash drive.

Reuters reviewed the video, which has never been made public. It shows DeLapp leaving the clerk’s office with files. A clerk then leaves her desk. She returns later with what appears to be a single-page document. The clerk examines the page, then stamps it in two places.

Meason and Lee say they were convinced that the document shown on the security tape was the same Contempt Court Minute that DeLapp submitted later that day to the high court. The footage, they believe, showed the clerk backdating the document, apparently to make it look as though it had been filed at the time DeLapp issued his contempt order.

Lee submitted a 44-page complaint against DeLapp with the state judicial council, characterizing the contempt document as “suspect at best.” Meason mailed a copy of the unabridged footage to the oversight council. Lee captured key frames and created a video presentation, which he also submitted. “I wanted to make it simple for them,” Lee said.SECURITY FOOTAGE: Lawyer Josh Lee used frame grabs from security camera footage from inside the Washington County clerk’s office to build this presentation alleging that Judge Curtis DeLapp committed misconduct.

The state’s judicial council investigated Lee’s complaint about DeLapp. According to council director Taylor Henderson, the matter was then forwarded to Chief Justice Combs with a recommendation that DeLapp be removed from office. The council director declined further comment but records show that a short while later, Combs moved to oust DeLapp, publicly filing a 20-page petition with the Court of Judiciary, the nine-member tribunal that has the authority to remove judges.

In the petition, the chief justice accused DeLapp of “gross neglect of duty,” “oppression in office” and “complete disregard” for the law. The justice also criticized DeLapp for abusing his judicial power and declared him unfit for office.

“I’m sure every state would like to think it has a judiciary that is above reproach, but every profession’s going to have a few bad apples.”Darlene Ballard, former director of Mississippi’s judicial oversight commission

In a section titled “Falsified Court Documents and Misrepresentation,” Combs chastised DeLapp for “gross misrepresentation” of the contempt of court document. If DeLapp created the document and pretended it was “newly discovered,” it may have constituted “a grossly intentional misrepresentation to the Oklahoma Supreme Court” – one that could be construed as a felony.

This was not the first time that DeLapp had failed to properly file a contempt of court document, then produced it after the fact, Combs concluded. In the 2015 case of a woman jailed for eating sunflower seeds in court, DeLapp waited more than two years before he “drafted” a required sentencing order. DeLapp filed the missing document “only after” his misuse of contempt powers came to light in 2018 in the Ludlow case, Combs wrote.

Combs detailed more allegations against DeLapp. One involved a father and son who became lost in the hallway of DeLapp’s courthouse. The boy asked DeLapp for directions to another courtroom, and the judge yelled at him, according to witnesses. DeLapp threatened that if the boy couldn’t find his way, “he could sit his ass in jail,” Combs wrote.

And the chief justice cited evidence that DeLapp had inappropriately contacted the county attorney’s office about a deferred prosecution agreement for DeLapp’s son, who was charged with traffic violations.

Rather than fight the misconduct allegations, DeLapp resigned without admitting to any wrongdoing.

Not every state is forgiving of judges facing misconduct charges who opt to resign. California, Texas and a dozen other states have pursued disciplinary cases and impose sanctions even after judges leave the bench.

West Virginia is among them. On average, West Virginia disciplines about four or five judges each year. Often, one or two of these cases involves a judge who resigned during a misconduct investigation, said Teresa Tarr, counsel for the state’s judicial oversight commission.

“It would be very easy for us to dismiss cases if they resign,” Tarr said. “I think the right thing to do is to hold them accountable, because it gives the public the understanding that the judiciary as a whole is not going to tolerate misbehavior. It also lets the other judges know what’s acceptable conduct and what’s not.”

Not so in Oklahoma, where the focus is on protecting the judge, not informing the public. “We want to try to self-police,” said Watt, the former chief justice. Handling matters informally is “the best way to take care of” wayward judges, “and not drag them through the mud.”

Settlement agreements like the one Oklahoma approved for DeLapp do more than permit accused judges to walk away without admitting guilt. When an accused judge leaves the bench, the commission’s investigation into misdeeds ends – even if other wrongdoing is suspected. 

Because state judicial investigations are sealed, the public is left to wonder about a judge’s culpability. Potential victims of misconduct may go undiscovered. And commission officials are prohibited from discussing cases under penalty of law. That silence can empower an accused judge to declare his or her innocence without citizens ever knowing the facts of the case.

DeLapp resigned to preserve his livelihood, his wife posted on Facebook. “He could’ve fought it, which he wanted too [sic] but did not want to risk losing his retirement, pension, Bar license, etc.,” she wrote.

In one of his last acts as a judge, DeLapp issued a statement in which he praised his judicial accomplishments and said he was leaving the bench with “a heavy heart but clear conscience.”

Judges who were publicly disciplined – and what they did

In the first comprehensive accounting of judicial misconduct nationally, Reuters reviewed 1,509 cases from the last dozen years – 2008 through 2019 – in which state or local judges resigned, retired or were publicly disciplined following accusations of misconduct. Explore judges in your STATE by using the drop down menu on the left. Or, to find a specific judge, type in the judge’s LAST NAME. To read official records about the judge’s conduct, click on a judge’s name.

FIND JUDGES BY STATE

Choose a state  Alabama  Alaska  Arizona  Arkansas  California  Colorado  Connecticut  Delaware  District of Columbia  Florida  Georgia  Hawaii  Idaho  Illinois  Indiana  Iowa  Kansas  Kentucky  Louisiana  Maine  Maryland  Massachusetts  Michigan  Minnesota  Mississippi  Missouri  Montana  Nebraska  Nevada  New Hampshire  New Jersey  New Mexico  New York  North Carolina  North Dakota  Ohio  Oklahoma  Oregon  Pennsylvania  Rhode Island  South Carolina  South Dakota  Tennessee  Texas  Utah  Vermont  Virginia  Washington  West Virginia  Wisconsin  Wyoming  OR

The Teflon Robe

By Michael Berens and John Shiffman

Contributing reporting: Andrea Januta and Caroline Monahan                

Data: Michael Berens, John Shiffman and Isabella Jibilian

Graphic: Matthew Weber

Photo editing: Corinne Perkins

Video: Craig Hettich

Design: Troy Dunkley and Pete Hausler

Edited by Blake Morrison 

• Follow Reuters Investigates

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