By Associated Press (Boston Herald)
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Retired Quincy cop, Anthony Courage of Hanover was charged with child rape of a 3-4yo and freed on $5,000 bail. Sadly, the Boston Herald did not completely investigate this story and is very small blurb.
For more of this story, please visit the Boston Herald.
Showing posts with label child abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label child abuse. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
Commentary: Controling & Obsessed People
Happy we will be transitioning out of retrograde on August 26th. All these negative events thrown at you only makes one stronger and better equipped to stand tall and strong with your feet firmly planted on the ground.
One of our supporters sent us this quote:
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Parents held in separate baby-battering incidents
By Christine McConville and Richard Weir
Boston Herald
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Two parents were in court yesterday in separate, horrific child abuse cases that stunned even veteran cops — a Dorchester woman who is accused of punching her toddler on the T and a Lawrence man accused of battering a 3-week-old child.
Erica Ryan, 25, was arrested Tuesday in Roxbury, after passengers on the MBTA’s Route 23 bus told cops they saw her swear at her son when he refused to eat, then punch him in the face.
“It’s an awful type of crime that the police officers had to respond to, but we are thankful that members of the riding public stepped up and kept the suspect there until police arrived,” said Deputy Transit Police Chief Joseph O’Connor, adding that Ryan punched her son hard “enough to make the child’s head move significantly.”
Upset passengers held her until police arrived, then Ryan fled down Warren Street, screaming, “No one is going to take away my baby,” according to Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley’s office.
When police caught up with her, they reportedly found dried blood around the baby’s mouth.
The boy is now staying with a relatives, Conley added.
Emanuel Quadros, 32, a Lawrence dad, was also arrested Tuesday.
His baby was taken to a Lawrence hospital May 18, with “a broken tibia, a broken femur, multiple rib injuries and some injuries that were already starting to heal,” Lawrence police Chief John Romero said. “We were notified by the hospital that the injuries weren’t consistent with the story.”
“He said he dropped the child, when he realized the baby was unconscious he panicked,” Romero said. “Then he ran into the back bedroom, placed the baby on the bed, slapped him several times, then bounced him up and down.
“And this is a 3-week-old infant,” Romero added. And when police questioned Quadros, Romero said, “He tried to implicate the mother.”
But the probe continued, and Tuesday, Quadros confessed to a state social worker and was arrested, Romero said.
Meanwhile, in Malden, little Carmelo Sears continues to recover, great-grandma Ruth Nickerson said.
The 2-month-old baby suffered a fractured skull and broken leg and fingers when he was tossed onto a sidewalk. His father has been charged.
Please visit the Boston Herald for videos, more information and commentary
Boston Herald
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Two parents were in court yesterday in separate, horrific child abuse cases that stunned even veteran cops — a Dorchester woman who is accused of punching her toddler on the T and a Lawrence man accused of battering a 3-week-old child.
Erica Ryan, 25, was arrested Tuesday in Roxbury, after passengers on the MBTA’s Route 23 bus told cops they saw her swear at her son when he refused to eat, then punch him in the face.
Upset passengers held her until police arrived, then Ryan fled down Warren Street, screaming, “No one is going to take away my baby,” according to Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley’s office.
When police caught up with her, they reportedly found dried blood around the baby’s mouth.
The boy is now staying with a relatives, Conley added.
Emanuel Quadros, 32, a Lawrence dad, was also arrested Tuesday.
His baby was taken to a Lawrence hospital May 18, with “a broken tibia, a broken femur, multiple rib injuries and some injuries that were already starting to heal,” Lawrence police Chief John Romero said. “We were notified by the hospital that the injuries weren’t consistent with the story.”
“He said he dropped the child, when he realized the baby was unconscious he panicked,” Romero said. “Then he ran into the back bedroom, placed the baby on the bed, slapped him several times, then bounced him up and down.
“And this is a 3-week-old infant,” Romero added. And when police questioned Quadros, Romero said, “He tried to implicate the mother.”
But the probe continued, and Tuesday, Quadros confessed to a state social worker and was arrested, Romero said.
Meanwhile, in Malden, little Carmelo Sears continues to recover, great-grandma Ruth Nickerson said.
The 2-month-old baby suffered a fractured skull and broken leg and fingers when he was tossed onto a sidewalk. His father has been charged.
-— rweir@bostonherald.com
Please visit the Boston Herald for videos, more information and commentary
MBTA forced to rehire employees busted for child rape and cocaine
By 08/03/2011 21:38:00
BOSTON - Arbitrators have forced the MBTA to rehire several employees who were fired for reasons including drug use and child rape.
The Boston Herald reports that the seven employees the T has rehired out of 22 arbitration cases since 2009 all had their dismissals overturned on technicalities.
Among them, a subway operator who tested positive for cocaine after being caught dozing behind the controls and was awarded her job back by an arbitrator who said the T violated her right to privacy by ordering a drug test.
In another case, a bus driver fired over his 1987 child rape conviction got his job back when the arbitrator ruled that the MBTA knew about his record when he was hired in 2000 and before a 2004 rule change banned convicted sex offenders.
Statement from the MBTA:
The conduct and behavior of our employees is of paramount interest at the MBTA, and that's why disciplinary action is taken when necessary or warranted. As stipulated in collective bargaining agreements, disciplined employees are entitled to avail themselves of an appeals process. While the disciplinary action is often upheld, there are some instances in which an independent arbitrator does not agree with the MBTA's position. The MBTA may disagree with a dissenting opinion, but it still must accept it. While perhaps not perfect, the process is in place to ensure that all parties are given the opportunity to present their arguments to an impartial and unbiased arbitrator.
BOSTON - Arbitrators have forced the MBTA to rehire several employees who were fired for reasons including drug use and child rape.
The Boston Herald reports that the seven employees the T has rehired out of 22 arbitration cases since 2009 all had their dismissals overturned on technicalities.
Among them, a subway operator who tested positive for cocaine after being caught dozing behind the controls and was awarded her job back by an arbitrator who said the T violated her right to privacy by ordering a drug test.
In another case, a bus driver fired over his 1987 child rape conviction got his job back when the arbitrator ruled that the MBTA knew about his record when he was hired in 2000 and before a 2004 rule change banned convicted sex offenders.
Statement from the MBTA:
The conduct and behavior of our employees is of paramount interest at the MBTA, and that's why disciplinary action is taken when necessary or warranted. As stipulated in collective bargaining agreements, disciplined employees are entitled to avail themselves of an appeals process. While the disciplinary action is often upheld, there are some instances in which an independent arbitrator does not agree with the MBTA's position. The MBTA may disagree with a dissenting opinion, but it still must accept it. While perhaps not perfect, the process is in place to ensure that all parties are given the opportunity to present their arguments to an impartial and unbiased arbitrator.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Statement of Lisa Allen
October 20, 2010 - Boston.com
I cannot stand by silently any longer while what happened to me is discussed in the press. It upsets me that Jeff Perry can run for Congress after what he did to me when I was fourteen years old.
I cannot stand by silently any longer while what happened to me is discussed in the press. It upsets me that Jeff Perry can run for Congress after what he did to me when I was fourteen years old.
Jeff Perry was nearby when Scott Flanagan illegally strip searched me. Perry knew what Flanagan did, he had to hear me screaming and crying. Instead of helping me, Jeff Perry denied anything happened. Even after Scott Flanagan admitted the truth under oath and pled guilty, Perry never apologized for allowing Flanagan to abuse me. Now he has said he would not do anything differently if he had the chance.
Perry did not care about protecting teen-aged girls in Wareham from police officer Flanagan. Jeff Perry cared only about protecting police officer Flanagan.
Chief Joyce now says Jeff Perry was a good cop. Neither Chief Joyce nor Sgt. Perry were good cops. Chief Joyce refused to investigate when my mother complained about what Flanagan did to me. Like Perry, Chief Joyce protected police officer Flanagan instead of protecting teen-aged girls from police officer Flanagan.
Jeff Perry was not an honest police sergeant; he should not be in a position of power
Breaking silence, strip search victim criticizes Perry
Read the whole article on Boston.com
EXCERPTS
"He had to hear me screaming and crying. Instead of helping me, Jeff Perry denied anything happened," said Allen, who released the statement to the Globe through her lawyer.
"Perry did not care about protecting teenaged girls in Wareham from police officer Flanagan," Allen said. "Jeff Perry cared only about protecting police officer Flanagan."
Perry was not charged in either the 1991 or 1992 assault. He resigned from the Wareham police 17 days after Flanagan was indicted, but has said his leaving the force was unrelated to the strip search cases.
Perry has also acknowledged misstating the facts of the 1992 strip search on his bar application, in which he said the victim had been arrested. Neither of the girls was arrested. The family of the second victim won a lawsuit against the town of Wareham, and Allen's family settled out of court.
"Chief Joyce now says Jeff Perry was a good cop," Allen said. "Neither Chief Joyce nor Sergeant Perry were good cops. Chief Joyce refused to investigate when my mother complained about what Flanagan did to me. Like Perry, Chief Joyce protected police officer Flanagan instead of protecting teenaged girls from police officer Flanagan."
EXCERPTS
"He had to hear me screaming and crying. Instead of helping me, Jeff Perry denied anything happened," said Allen, who released the statement to the Globe through her lawyer.
"Perry did not care about protecting teenaged girls in Wareham from police officer Flanagan," Allen said. "Jeff Perry cared only about protecting police officer Flanagan."
Perry was not charged in either the 1991 or 1992 assault. He resigned from the Wareham police 17 days after Flanagan was indicted, but has said his leaving the force was unrelated to the strip search cases.
Perry has also acknowledged misstating the facts of the 1992 strip search on his bar application, in which he said the victim had been arrested. Neither of the girls was arrested. The family of the second victim won a lawsuit against the town of Wareham, and Allen's family settled out of court.
"Chief Joyce now says Jeff Perry was a good cop," Allen said. "Neither Chief Joyce nor Sergeant Perry were good cops. Chief Joyce refused to investigate when my mother complained about what Flanagan did to me. Like Perry, Chief Joyce protected police officer Flanagan instead of protecting teenaged girls from police officer Flanagan."
Victim Of Illegal Strip Search Publicly Castigates GOP Candidate
A woman who was assaulted as a teenager by a police officer under the supervision of a current Republican Massachusetts House candidate is speaking out.
''He had to hear me screaming and crying. Instead of helping me, Jeff Perry denied anything happened,'' said Lisa Allen, in a statement to the Boston Globe.
Perry is the GOP hopeful in Massachusetts' 10th Congressional District. Almost 20 years ago, an officer under his command named Scott Flanagan confessed to and was convicted of assaulting Allen and another girl. Perry initially denied that any assault occurred, but thereafter quickly disappeared from the force.
"Perry did not care about protecting teenaged girls in Wareham from police officer Flanagan,'' Allen said. ''Jeff Perry cared only about protecting police officer Flanagan.''
''I cannot stand by silently any longer while what happened to me is discussed in the press,'' Allen added. ''It upsets me that Jeff Perry can run for Congress after what he did to me when I was 14 years old.''
Perry demurred when the Globe asked for comment, saying only that he sympathized with Allen for her suffering.
''What happened to Lisa Allen was wrong and should never happen to anyone,'' Perry said in a statement. ''Scott Flanagan's actions were despicable and a betrayal of the oath he took as a police officer. My heart goes out to Ms. Allen for what she was put through by Scott Flanagan that night.''
The incident has become a major campaign issue, and the source of one of the most brutal ads of the 2010 cycle.
Allen's father is quoted in the ad, urging Perry to skip town. Perry's running against Democrat Bill Keating to fill a seat being vacated by Rep. Bill Delahunt.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/victim-of-illegal-strip-search-publicly-castigates-gop-candidate.php
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Plymouth man charged with child rape
PLYMOUTH —
A 25-year-old Plymouth man faces charges he raped a child.
Plymouth police arrested Patrick J. McGrath at his apartment at 34 Summer St. late Friday afternoon. He was held during the weekend on $10,000 bail until his arraignment which was scheduled for Monday in Plymouth District Court. He is charged with rape of a child under 14 with force and assault and battery on a child under 14, Plymouth police Capt. John Rogers said.
Police and the Plymouth County District Attorney’s child advocacy unit began an investigation after being notified of the allegations by the state Department of Children and Families, Rogers said.
READ MORE about this issue.
Plymouth police arrested Patrick J. McGrath at his apartment at 34 Summer St. late Friday afternoon. He was held during the weekend on $10,000 bail until his arraignment which was scheduled for Monday in Plymouth District Court. He is charged with rape of a child under 14 with force and assault and battery on a child under 14, Plymouth police Capt. John Rogers said.
Police and the Plymouth County District Attorney’s child advocacy unit began an investigation after being notified of the allegations by the state Department of Children and Families, Rogers said.
READ MORE about this issue.
‘Faces of Prevention’ recognized in observance of Child Abuse Prevention Month
Employees of Kennedy-Donovan Center in Kingston recently received honors as “Faces of Prevention” in recognition of their work to prevent child abuse and neglect in the local community.
The Children’s Trust Fund (CTF) of Massachusetts, the state’s leading child abuse prevention agency, presented the honor as part of its observance of April as Child Abuse Prevention Month.
The Faces of Prevention campaign showcases hundreds of community leaders who are committed to preventing child abuse everyday throughout the commonwealth. The staff members honored were Dennis Carchedi, Mary Ridder, Jane Ross-Anderson, Ginny Scibilio and Robyn Soucek.
CTF provides funding to Kennedy-Donovan Center to operate Greater Plymouth Healthy Families. The program offers home visiting services for first-time parents under age 21 in Carver, Cohasset, Duxbury, Halifax, Hanover, Hanson, Hingham, Hull, Kingston, Marshfield, Norwell, Pembroke, Plymouth, Plympton, Rockland and Scituate.
The program is part of Healthy Families Massachusetts (HFM). Research shows that families who participate in HFM learn to become nurturing parents, and their babies are more likely to be developmentally on target.
Child abuse is a severe problem in Massachusetts, which ranks highest in abuse rates compiled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The number of children confirmed as abused each year by the Department of Children and Families would nearly fill Fenway Park.
“Raising children is joyous and challenging,” Suzin Bartley, executive director of the Children’s Trust Fund, said. “Research shows that when parents and families receive education on parenting, child development and other important resources, they are less likely to abuse or neglect their children.”
About The Children’s Trust Fund
The Children’s Trust Fund (CTF) of Massachusetts leads statewide efforts to prevent child abuse and neglect by supporting parents and strengthening families. CTF funds, evaluates and promotes the work of more than 100 agencies statewide. Supported by private, state and federal funding, CTF invests in Massachusetts’ most precious resource – children and their families. For more information about the Children’s Trust Fund, go to www.mctf.org, email info@mctf.state.ma.us or call 888-775-4KID.
Police: Child's Abuse Was 'Monstrous'
New Bedford 4-Year-Old Hospitalized
POSTED: 4:18 pm EST February 1, 2011
UPDATED: 4:40 pm EST February 1, 2011
UPDATED: 4:40 pm EST February 1, 2011
Elvis J. Garcia, 31, was arrested Monday night and accused of attacking the boy with a belt, according to the Boston Herald. State police spokesman David Propcpio said the abuse "committed on this child was monstrous."Officials said the injuries appeared to be inflicted on the child over the course of several days. It was not clear why the boy was in the custody of Garcia. Garcia, a man known to the child's mother, was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon resulting in substantial bodily injury and reckless endangerment of a child. He was scheduled to face charges Tuesday in New Bedford District Court.The boy's mother was arraigned Monday on charges of reckless endangerment of a child and permitting substantial injury to a child, the Herald reported.
Copyright 2011 by TheBostonChannel.com
Former Boston pediatrician faces sexual abuse allegations
BOSTON |
(Reuters) - A former Boston pediatrician was accused in a lawsuit on Thursday of sexually abusing young male patients by giving them genital examinations that were not medically necessary.The lawsuit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court by Boston attorney Carmen Durso, alleges Dr. Melvin Levine performed such exams on more than 40 minor patients from 1966 to 1985 while working at Children's Hospital Boston.
The lawsuit seeks class action certification, which would broaden it to represent others who claim they were inappropriately treated. The suit says Levine treated some 5,000 boys over those 20 years.
Levine's defense attorney Edward Mahoney said in a statement: "Dr. Levine denies in the strongest terms possible the allegations."
Mahoney said Levine has received "widespread and unflagging support from patients and peers."
The lawsuit alleges Children's Hospital knew of the sexual abuse and had received complaints about unwarranted or improper medical treatment by Levine but failed to act.
In a statement, Children's Hospital said during Levine's tenure it did not receive any complaints from parents or patients.
"Children's would not, and did not, cover up any inappropriate conduct relating to Dr. Levine," the hospital said in the statement.
The hospital did say it received one complaint after Levine left the hospital, but that it was investigated and resolved.
"The hospital supervised Dr. Levine's practice in accordance with the applicable standards of the time," it said.
Levine last practiced at Children's Hospital 25 years ago and later worked in North Carolina.
In 2009, he agreed not to practice medicine and to surrender his medical license after the North Carolina Medical Board received five complaints from patients alleging he conducted inappropriate genital examinations without a chaperon present.
(Reporting by Lauren Keiper; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Jerry Norton)
Friday, July 15, 2011
Domestic Violence Facts: MASSACHUSETTS
By: NCADV
www.ncadv.org/files/Massachusetts.pdf
1 Tjaden, P. & Thoennes, N. (2000). Extent, Nature and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey. National Institute of Justice and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. National Institute of Justice and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention
2 U.S. Department of Justice. (November 1998). Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women.
3Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2003). Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States. Atlanta, GA: National Centers for Injury Prevention and Control.
4 Bureau of Justice Statistics. (June, 2005). Family Violence Statistics. U.S. Department of Justice.
5 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2003). Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States. Atlanta, GA: National Centers for Injury Prevention and Control.
6 Strauss, Gelles, & Smith. (1990). Physical Violence in American Families: Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families. Transaction Publishers.
7Jane Doe Inc. (2007). DVAM 2006 Statistics– Massachusetts. Boston, MA: The Massachusetts Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
8 Center for Family and Community Health. (January 2007). Rape and Sexual Assault in Massachusetts, 2005-2006: Services Provided by Rape Crisis Programs. Boston, MA: Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Division of Violence and Injury Prevention. Retrieved on October 19, 2007, from http://www.mass.gov/dph/fch/violnece/January2007
9Massachusetts Law Enforcement Agency. (2007). Uniform Crime Report, 2006. Boston, MA. Retrieved on October 19, 2007, from http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/macrime.html
10The Family Violence Prevention Fund. (May 2005). The Facts on Children and Domestic Violence. Retrieved on October 23, 2007, from http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/Children.pdf
www.ncadv.org/files/Massachusetts.pdf
- One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.1 One in 33 men have experienced an attempted or completed rape.2
- An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year.3
- The majority (73%) of family violence victims are female. Females were 84% of spousal abuse victims and 86% of abuse victims at the hands of a boyfriend.4
- The cost of intimate partner violence exceeds $5.8 billion each year, $4.1 billion of which is for direct medical and mental health services.5
- Boys who witness domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their own partners and children when they become adults.6
- More than 33,000 women and children were served by community-based domestic violence programs in Massachusetts in 2005.7
- The statewide domestic violence hotline, SafeLink, answered 21,637 domestic violence calls in 2006.7
- There were 28 victims killed in domestic violence related incidents and 24 incidents of domestic
violence related homicide in 2006.7 - There were fifteen victims of domestic homicide in only the first half of 2006, which was equal to the total killed in 2005.
- There were 28,760 protection orders issued in Massachusetts in 2005.7
- 82% of the perpetrators were male.7
- During this same period, 4,347 adults (88% of whom were male) were arraigned for violating orders for protection.7
- There were 2,582 incidents of sexual assault in Massachusetts between July 1, 2005 and June 30,
2006.8 - 1,742 of these cases were forcible rape.9
1 Tjaden, P. & Thoennes, N. (2000). Extent, Nature and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey. National Institute of Justice and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. National Institute of Justice and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention
2 U.S. Department of Justice. (November 1998). Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women.
3Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2003). Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States. Atlanta, GA: National Centers for Injury Prevention and Control.
4 Bureau of Justice Statistics. (June, 2005). Family Violence Statistics. U.S. Department of Justice.
5 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2003). Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States. Atlanta, GA: National Centers for Injury Prevention and Control.
6 Strauss, Gelles, & Smith. (1990). Physical Violence in American Families: Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families. Transaction Publishers.
7Jane Doe Inc. (2007). DVAM 2006 Statistics– Massachusetts. Boston, MA: The Massachusetts Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
8 Center for Family and Community Health. (January 2007). Rape and Sexual Assault in Massachusetts, 2005-2006: Services Provided by Rape Crisis Programs. Boston, MA: Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Division of Violence and Injury Prevention. Retrieved on October 19, 2007, from http://www.mass.gov/dph/fch/violnece/January2007
9Massachusetts Law Enforcement Agency. (2007). Uniform Crime Report, 2006. Boston, MA. Retrieved on October 19, 2007, from http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/macrime.html
10The Family Violence Prevention Fund. (May 2005). The Facts on Children and Domestic Violence. Retrieved on October 23, 2007, from http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/Children.pdf
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Risk Factors Predict Repeat Abuse
When child abuse has been substantiated, a number of risk factors can predict the likelihood that abuse will be repeated if the child is returned to the care of the abuser, according to a prospective cohort study.
Please visit our sister blog on this topic for full story: http://domestic-abuse-violence.blogspot.com/2011/07/risk-factors-predict-repeat-abuse.html
Please visit our sister blog on this topic for full story: http://domestic-abuse-violence.blogspot.com/2011/07/risk-factors-predict-repeat-abuse.html
Judge: Father poses 'mortal danger' to boy, 7
July 6, 2011
Staff writer
Staff writer
PEABODY — A Lynn father who managed to regain custody of his young son last year after breaking the boy's jaw, only to face new charges after an alleged assault last month, poses a "mortal danger" to the child, a judge said yesterday.
George Fabrizio, 33, will remain in jail as he awaits trial on charges of assault and battery on a child with serious bodily injury, Peabody District Court Judge Matthew Nestor ruled yesterday.
Police allege that on June 27, during a visit to a friend's Peabody home, Fabrizio slapped his son hard enough to knock the 7-year-old's head against the corner of a cabinet, leaving a deep gash. Fabrizio allegedly refused to take the boy to the hospital and threatened that if anyone else called police, he would simply blame two other young children in the apartment.
The judge also expressed a lack of confidence in the ability of the Department of Children and Families to keep the child safe, suggesting, "What if DCF decides tomorrow to return the child to him?"
The comments came at the end of a hearing where a Peabody woman and her daughter-in-law both testified that they have had grave concerns about the safety of the child almost from the boy's birth, but said that numerous calls to the DCF led to little or nothing being done.
The two women testified about past incidents of abuse that they saw over the course of the boy's life.
Then, in 2009, after a dentist discovered that the child's jaw had been broken (and a later X-ray found an old skull fracture), the child was sent to live with relatives, an aunt and an uncle, for a year, police learned.
Fabrizio later admitted to sufficient facts in the case and received a year of probation.
Carol Schacht, whose son is a longtime friend of Fabrizio, said DCF tried to keep the boy with those relatives, but a Lynn Juvenile Court judge returned custody to Fabrizio.
Schacht testified that she saw the boy once or twice a week and that he "wasn't getting fed."
During Thanksgiving dinner last year, she said, Fabrizio made the child sit on a porch outside while her family and Fabrizio ate. She said she and others were afraid to intervene out of concern that he would take it out on the boy later.
"We were trying to sneak food out to him," Schacht testified.
During a birthday party the weekend before the most recent assault, Schacht testified that Fabrizio slapped a hotdog out of the boy's hand and made him spit out the bite he had taken.
"(The boy) started crying," Schacht said. "We tried to console him, and then George told him, 'We've got to go.'"
Her daughter-in-law also told the judge that Fabrizio barely fed the child, who subsisted on cereal, ramen noodles and, sometimes, pizza. When Fabrizio had a woman visiting him at his apartment, in a Lynn public housing complex, he would lock the boy outside, she said.
Schacht said that after the most recent incident — during which Fabrizio had to pull the boy's head off the cabinet because it got stuck — she decided to call police.
Prosecutor Jane Prince, who questioned how Fabrizio could still have custody of the child after the prior abuse, argued that other than locking Fabrizio up, there was no way to protect the boy.
"He needs this court's protection," Prince told the judge. "He's suffered a lifetime of abuse. He's asked for help on multiple occasions, and the commonwealth has failed (him)."
Defense lawyer Christopher Norris acknowledged that his client poses a danger to the child, but suggested the judge could "neutralize" the risk by ordering no contact between the two.
But the judge shared the concerns of the prosecutor, questioning whether a court order, or even an electronic monitoring system, could adequately protect the child. He granted Prince's motion to hold Fabrizio without bail pending trial.
Fabrizio, who receives Social Security Disability Income for an unspecified disability, lives in a public housing complex on Curwin Circle in Lynn, an apartment he could lose if he no longer has custody of the boy. The boy also receives SSDI benefits, Schacht said.
Courts reporter Julie Manganis may be reached at 978-338-2521 or at jmanganis@salemnews.com.
For More On This Article, Please go To Salemnews.com
Friday, June 17, 2011
Custodians of Abuse
Published on January 09, 2003 by Boston Phoenix
by Kristen Lombardi
by Kristen Lombardi
IF YOU’RE A PARENT, it’s your worst nightmare: finding out that your child is being molested — by your spouse. If you seek a divorce as a result, or are already going through one when you make the discovery, you hope that family court will do the right thing: grant you sole legal and physical custody of your child. In fact, you can’t even imagine that there could be any other outcome in the custody judgment. But for many parents — in nearly every instance, mothers — just the opposite occurs: the alleged abusers don’t just get unsupervised visitation rights, they get full custody. How can this happen?
Easy, say family-law attorneys, child-abuse advocates, and child-law specialists. Family courts aren’t equipped to adjudicate criminal matters. They exist to settle divorces, wills, adoptions, guardianships, and other matters related to litigation between family members.
Three recent studies that looked at the outcomes of custody disputes involving child-abuse claims — one study surveyed California courts, one surveyed Massachusetts courts, and a third tracked 300 cases over a 10-year period in courts throughout the country — all came to the same conclusion: the nation’s family courts are failing to protect children from abuse.
“Family courts are not in a position to litigate the complexities of child sexual abuse,” explains Seth Goldstein, a Napa, California–based attorney who represents men and women in custody disputes involving child-sex-abuse charges. Goldstein, who also founded the Child Abuse Forensic Institute, in Napa, says that most family courts are “overburdened” with cases and don’t have time for the lengthy trials and investigations that child-abuse allegations demand. “In many family courts,” he says, “you often have only one sitting judge to hear hundreds of matters that have to do with many, many things, so the courts are compelled to move things along as quickly as possible. The system is just not conducive to [dealing with] child abuse.”
Colorado attorney Alan Rosenfeld, who specializes in representing parents in custody disputes involving child-abuse allegations and has counseled approximately 1000 mothers trying to protect their children from abusive ex-husbands, is blunt: “If we ever sat down to design the worst possible system that protects the smallest number of children, it would look a lot like the family courts look today.”
Nearly 25 experts in custody litigation involving child-abuse claims were interviewed for this article. All had the same three complaints about family court — regardless of which state’s court system they were familiar with:
Family courts do not rely on criminal investigators to examine child-abuse claims. They rely on family advocates called guardians ad litem (GALs), whose charge is to investigate allegations of abuse, abandonment, and neglect and to represent the best interests of the children in disputed custody cases. More often than not, they are licensed psychologists or social workers. Sometimes, they are attorneys. They may be highly trained in their own areas of expertise, but that doesn’t qualify them to evaluate physical evidence of abuse and to interview victims and alleged abusers. Yet in contested custody battles, they are frequently called upon to do just that. Their recommendations carry significant weight in judicial decisions that set the course of a child’s life.
Normal courtroom checks and balances don’t exist in family court. Unlike in criminal and civil court, there are no juries. And family courts do not mandate legal representation. Therefore, the only litigants with attorneys are those who can afford them. In this atmosphere, judges have extraordinary powers and can work with near-complete impunity. It is not uncommon, for example, for judges to hold hearings in which important rulings are made with only one party present (called ex parte hearings); such hearings can violate basic constitutional rights of due process.
Gender bias and traditional stereotypes of how women and men parent children continue to prevail in family court. As a result, while conventional wisdom has it that mothers almost always fare well in family court, statistics show otherwise. In 1996, the Williamsburg, Virginia–based American Judges Association released a report, “Domestic Violence and the Courtroom,” in which it noted that wife batterers and child abusers convince family-court officials that their ex-wives are “unfit” or “undeserving” of sole custody in roughly 70 percent of contested custody battles. A 1989 Massachusetts study commissioned by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) showed that gender bias often hampers the administration of justice for women in custody decisions. It’s true that mothers are almost always awarded full or joint custody of their children in divorce cases where custody isn’t disputed. Yet the study found that when there was a fight over the children, fathers won primary or joint custody more than 70 percent of the time — whether or not there was a history of spousal or child abuse. (See “Changes in Massachusetts Family Courts Since 1989,” this page.) Although the study is 13 years old and a number of things have changed since it was first published, at least 23 states have conducted gender-bias studies since — and all have made similar findings.
AMERICA’S DARKEST SECRET
IT’S HARD TO say how many children are affected in these cases. Massachusetts family courts mediated approximately 9450 custody cases in 2001; multiply that by 50 and you get an extremely rough estimate of how many such cases are heard nationwide every year 472,500. Of these, it’s impossible to say how many involve charges of child abuse. Massachusetts family courts, for instance, do not keep statistics on the types of custody cases litigated. To date, the most reliable and largest national study of the incidence of child sexual abuse in contested custody cases occurred in 1990, when the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, in Denver, surveyed 9000 custody disputes in 12 family courts across the country. Fewer than two percent involved child-sex-abuse charges.
The number is small. But the implications for the children concerned are staggering. Take, for instance, Idelle Clarke’s 16-year-old daughter, who is now living with her father, a man twice found by Los Angeles child-protection workers to have sexually assaulted her.
“This is one of America’s darkest, most shameful secrets,” says Clarke, a 54-year-old Southern California mother whose case has become something of a cause célèbre among the burgeoning community of women and advocates seeking reform of the nation’s family courts. After a nine-year custody battle that began in Los Angeles County Family Courts in 1993 and ended in California Supreme Court last October, Clarke not only lost custody of her daughter, but cannot have any contact with the girl. No phone calls. No visits. Nothing. Family-court judges simply didn’t believe that the girl had been sexually assaulted by Clarke’s ex-husband, Ovando Cowles, even though two separate, exhaustive sex-abuse investigations by LA child-protection workers found that she had been. Instead, judges maintained that Clarke had brainwashed her daughter into making up bogus charges about her father. So now, even though her daughter lives just minutes away from Clarke’s Sierra Madre home, she hasn’t been able to see the girl in the two years since the initial family-court judgment, which prohibited Clarke from going within 100 yards of her daughter. “It’s a punishment greater than those given to serial rapists,” says Clarke, who is now preparing to file a January 14 petition asking the United States Supreme Court to hear her case. Meanwhile, Clarke’s daughter doesn’t just live with the man who’s sexually abused her on at least two occasions. The teenager, who is developmentally delayed, lives with her abuser not understanding that the people who want to protect her, can’t. And that those who can protect her, won’t.
In the small world of contested custody cases in which child-abuse claims arise, Clarke’s situation isn’t an exception. It’s more the rule. Colorado attorney Rosenfeld has seen mothers lose custody of children who’ve contracted sexually transmitted diseases from their fathers or who’ve made graphic disclosures such as “Daddy took Mr. Cocky and I played with him and took a tissue and cleaned it up.” Nevertheless, for years, parents who’ve lost their children to abusers have believed their cases were exceptions. Until Clarke went public with her story.
In 1999, the now-defunct Los Angeles New Times published a detailed account of the prolonged custody battle. Since then, Clarke has fielded countless phone calls from women across the country who, like her, expected to find justice in the family courts, but found something quite different instead. “Rarely a day goes by where I don’t get a call from a mother,” she says. The outpouring inspired her, along with four mothers from California, Alaska, Michigan, and New Jersey, to organize the grassroots group United for Justice, whose members include hundreds of women in 49 states caught in Kafkaesque nightmares in the nation’s family courts. Says Clarke, “Women are being routinely punished and abused if they bring up child-sexual-abuse allegations in the family courts.” And it’s not just Clarke and other mothers who’ve lost custody of their children who make this claim.
New York area sociologist Amy Neustein, along with two co-authors, is writing a critique of the family-court system for Northeastern University Press. In 1988, she established the Help Us Regain the Children Legal Research Center, which tracks custody battles involving child-sexual-abuse claims. Over the past 14 years, she has compiled a database with nearly 1000 cases, and has identified a frequent and disturbing pattern: “the penalization of mothers for bringing these allegations to the court’s attention in the first place.”
In a 1999 study on judicial responses to mothers’ child-abuse complaints, Neustein and a colleague followed 300 cases through the family courts in places across the country for a 10-year period, from 1988 to 1998. Only 10 percent of the 300 cases resulted in what Neustein termed “a positive outcome” — meaning that the mother had won primary custody of her children and the alleged abuser had gotten supervised visits. In 70 percent of the cases, the mothers had to send their children on unsupervised visits and share custody with the alleged abusers. More than 20 percent of the cases led to what Neustein referred to as “a negative outcome” i.e., the mother lost visitation rights altogether. Too often, she concludes, “The system retaliates against mothers with such ferocity that they lose their rights.”
Her research, which entails combing through court transcripts, depositions, sex-abuse evaluations, GAL reports, and judicial findings from the 1000 child-custody cases in her database, has exposed punitive measures commonly issued by judges against mothers who continue to charge child sexual abuse. Family-court judges, for example, hold women in contempt, throw them in jail, scale back their visitation privileges, and even forbid them to seek psychological care for their children. In some instances, judges have gone to the extreme of ordering women not to have any contact — no letters, no phone calls — with their children.
“What I have seen in the family courts goes beyond the maltreatment of any other afflicted class in the history of this country,” Neustein maintains. She ticks off a shocking number of injustices committed against mothers. Family judges routinely refuse to hear evidence of child sexual abuse; fail to give mothers a chance to testify in court on critical matters concerning abuse; hand down judgments against mothers in ex parte hearings without giving them prior notice; and evade the rules that guide courtroom conduct. She says, “People would be flabbergasted by what I have found in the family courts.... It’s as if you’re looking into a world that’s completely outside the normal range of legal conduct.”
DOCUMENTING THE ABUSE
NOT LONG AFTER Clarke’s story was published, the California National Organization for Women (NOW) drafted a friend-of-the-court brief urging California appellate judges to review Clarke’s case, as did the Washington, DC–based legal-watchdog group Judicial Watch. (Her case has attracted an impressive list of notables from the mental-health and legal fields. Among the dozens who submitted letters this year urging the California Supreme Court to review the custody dispute were University of Southern California law professor Susan Estrich, National NOW president Kim Gandy, and former American Psychiatric Association president Paul Fink.) After NOW’s brief was reported in the press, the organization, like Clarke, began receiving e-mails and phone calls from women nationwide describing similar problems. The vast majority of these women, says Rachel Allan of California NOW, had lost custody to husbands or boyfriends believed to be sexually abusing their children. In response to the stories, the group launched a three-year effort to examine the problems women face in California’s family courts. In 2001, the organization posted a 21-page questionnaire on its Web page. Feedback was overwhelming, Allan says; the group received detailed responses from women in every region in the country, including Massachusetts. “Women had expected to find a family-friendly venue [in family court] to make arrangements on divorce and custody,” she explains, “but they found something quite different.”
Last June, after surveying 300 California mothers who had participated in the questionnaire and conducting follow-up interviews, NOW released a 134-page report on the state of the family courts in California. Not intended as a neutral analysis, the document portrays a system that’s “crippled, incompetent, and corrupt” and riddled with abuses against women. Women reported being openly insulted and called “sexist names” by judges, GALs, and court evaluators. Some complained that judges silenced them during hearings while allowing their estranged partners to speak. Others complained that judges refused to let them call their own expert witnesses who’d analyzed forensic evidence in their cases or even to let women testify in custody disputes that would affect their own children. Evaluators and GALs often sided with the fathers and their attorneys, especially when spousal or child abuse arose.
The NOW report found that the most serious problems occurred in custody litigation involving allegations of domestic violence; in 76 percent of the cases surveyed, the fathers were accused of having physically or sexually abused their children. In 50 percent of these cases, the abuse was substantiated with police reports. In 30 percent, court-issued restraining orders had been directed against the fathers. Yet when mothers raised allegations of child abuse in disputes, fathers won sole or joint custody 69 percent of the time. Family-court judges did not permit evidence of the father’s child abuse to be heard in 73 percent of these cases, even though blocking such evidence from court proceedings violates due-process rights. Allan and her colleagues repeatedly found that judges had disregarded compelling evidence of child sexual abuse. Some judges deemed such material irrelevant because of earlier rulings or similar technicalities. Others flouted the rules altogether. “I’ve been in a family court where the judge openly proclaimed, ‘I don’t care what the law says. This is my courtroom,’” Allan says. “In so many cases, judges just ignored the evidence of abuse and the word of children themselves.”
Massachusetts hasn’t escaped these problems. Last November, the Wellesley Centers for Women, at Wellesley College, issued a sharp critique of the Massachusetts family-court system as part of a three-year research effort known as the Battered Women’s Testimony Project (BWTP). The November 25 report, “Battered Mothers Speak Out,” stems from interviews with 40 women from across the state — all of whom had suffered physical, emotional, or psychological abuse during their marriages — and 45 victims’ advocates, judges, and other courtroom personnel. The study found that officials who work at nearly every family court in the Commonwealth regularly commit what the report described as “human-rights violations” against battered mothers. Women complained about a host of offenses: how court personnel labeled them hysterical and unreasonable; treated them with scorn, condescension, and disrespect; failed to give them a chance to be heard in court; and denied them access to sensitive investigations and documents pertinent to their custody disputes.
Fifteen of the 40 women interviewed said their ex-partners retained sole or joint custody of the children — even though all 15 men reportedly abused both their ex-wives and their children. Eighteen complained that judges or family-service officers granted or recommended that abusive fathers get unsupervised visitation with their children. When it came to allegations of spousal or child abuse, 38 women said judges, family-service officers, and GALs had ignored or minimized their claims. Nine of the 40 women said judges and GALs failed to investigate allegations of physical and sexual abuse. And six of the 40 women said that judges and GALs refused to take into account documented evidence of child abuse when deciding their custody disputes. The Wellesley report concluded that family courts across Massachusetts are systematically failing to protect battered women and their children from further harm. As Carrie Cuthbert, one of the report’s five authors and co-director of the Wellesley Centers’ Women’s Rights Network, explains, “Not only is the safety and well-being of mothers and children at stake, but so is battered mothers’ trust in our family courts.” Within the community of battered women and their advocates, she continues, “the family courts have gained a reputation as a place where women don’t find justice.”
Not surprisingly, Massachusetts family-court judges disagree. They condemn the 106-page Wellesley report as skewed because it relies solely on testimony from women with complaints about custody decisions, not those satisfied with their rulings. “It is incomplete and flawed in its methodology,” states Sean Dunphy, the chief justice of the Massachusetts family and probate courts. He maintains that the report’s approach, which frames the 40 women’s accounts in the context of human-rights violations, “may work well for systems in Third World countries, but not for a court in the United States.” He and other judges argue that the women’s testimony would have been strengthened if it had been verified by a review of court transcripts and by interviews with lawyers in the cases. (In fact, the Wellesley report’s authors fact-checked 10 of the 40 stories with court records and other documentation. “In every one, we found the documents thoroughly supported the women’s statements,” says Lundy Bancroft, a report author.)
Nevertheless, Dunphy finds the claim that the state’s family courts aren’t working to be a “broad-brushed statement.” It concerns him, however, “that individuals would have such perceptions and beliefs.” Jeremy Stahlin, associate justice at the Suffolk County Probate and Family Court, concedes that if the complaints outlined in the report were true, “then, yes, it’s a problem.” But he also concludes: “I don’t think the court is predominantly favoring one side or the other in these custody cases, and I find that hard to accept as a premise.”
Complaints about faulty methodology strike advocates as a convenient way to deflect attention from the issues laid out in the controversial reports. That so many women across the state reported strikingly similar accounts should, in and of itself, be cause for alarm, Bancroft says, noting, “It’s shocking that 40 women who don’t know each other would offer the same complaints about the family courts.” He adds, “The family court’s current response to custody disputes, particularly those that involve child-abuse allegations, is repeatedly failing to protect children.”
Losing custody to a child molester
[note: a portion of this article has been deleted]
THE NOTORIOUS Fells Acres day-care and McMartin preschool child-sexual-abuse cases have left behind a terrible legacy: That same year, Karen Henderson of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported on problems in her diocese and beyond. Yet it wasn’t until 2002, when the details of sexual abuse by scores of clergy within the Boston archdiocese were made public, that enough people believed the charges, victims could credibly demand their abusers be held accountable, and law-enforcement and court authorities would finally listen.
So it should come as no surprise that family-court officials often disbelieve charges of child sex abuse — even though few sex-abuse allegations ever turn out to be patently false. Kathleen Coulborn Faller, a professor of social work at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, has done extensive research into child-sex-abuse allegations in custody cases and has found that 70 percent of these allegations were indeed true. Of the other 30 percent, she reports, very few involved parents maliciously conjuring up bogus charges — only 10 out of 215 cases fit that description. Even that number seems inflated, given that four of the 10 cases involved one father who Faller says “admitted that he had filed false child-abuse reports ... to obtain greater access to his daughter.” Thus, the data, she says, “thoroughly debunks the myth that false allegations are rampant in custody disputes.”
Even so, the myth persists. Combine that with gender bias — after all, most claims of abuse are made by women against their ex-husbands or former boyfriends — and you have situations in which mothers find it very difficult to get their claims taken seriously. Eileen King, director of the Washington, DC, office of Justice for Children, a national child-advocacy group, has worked on roughly 100 custody cases involving child-abuse allegations in many states over the past two years, and has seen how gender discrimination comes into play. If a mother who suspects molestation appears distraught in the courtroom (which seems only natural when dealing with the horror of hearing a child say, “Daddy puts his pee-pee in my pee-pee”) she often gets slapped with the “hysterical” label. If she appears composed, the label is “cold and calculated.” Mothers, King observes, “are often put into no-win situations.”
Gender bias against mothers, combined with a culture resistant to believing fathers molest their children, has made for a potent mix, giving rise to a bogus mental disorder called “parental-alienation syndrome” (PAS) that is frequently employed by alleged sex abusers in their custody battles. Essentially, PAS involves brainwashing a child to allege molestation. The syndrome, according to the theory, afflicts mostly “vindictive mothers” who “program” their kids to fabricate claims so they’ll have an advantage in litigation. The brainchild of Richard Gardner, a psychiatrist affiliated with Columbia University (who believes that up to 90 percent of all child-sex-abuse allegations are false), PAS has been referenced in courtrooms in Massachusetts and across the country, even though it’s widely discredited by mainstream mental-health professionals.
Since 1987, when Gardner first coined the phrase “parental-alienation syndrome,” he has provided no scientific data to support it. Most of his 140 or so articles on the subject have not appeared in peer-reviewed medical journals, which require evaluation of articles by fellow professionals before publication. The American Psychiatric Association has not included PAS in its diagnostic manual of certifiable disorders. “It is a non-syndrome,” explains Robert Geffner, a psychologist who has evaluated child-sex-abuse allegations in family-court litigation for 20 years and who established the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Institute, in San Diego. “PAS [is] no medical diagnosis whatsoever. You cannot confirm a syndrome simply by stating that it exists.”
Nevertheless, Gardner’s PAS theory is widely accepted in a legal system seeking neat, convenient ways to get rid of time-consuming custody battles. A prolific writer, Gardner has self-published hundreds of books, audiotapes, and videotapes and has lugged them across the globe to train family-court judges, GALs, and psychologists on how to recognize PAS. “People believe him,” Faller says. “The idea of an alienating parent has taken on a life of its own.” His teachings have become so thoroughly integrated into the language of family law that mothers almost always face a variation on them in court: a mother who alleges abuse is crazy, for instance; or she coaches the kids; or she is crazy and coaches the kids. As King, of Justice for Children, explains, “No one has to cite ‘PAS’ anymore. They say the mother is ‘delusional,’ or that she is ‘destroying the relationship’ with the father. It’s the most common defense in these cases.” Or, as Suffolk family judge Stahlin says, “It’s very common for one parent to say the other is ‘alienating’ or ‘coaching’ the child. Often, it’s the only explanation that the accused can come up with for why the child is saying what he’s saying.” Indeed, Gardner’s influence has become so entrenched nowadays that the Massachusetts Citizens for Children, a statewide child-advocacy group based in Waltham, organized an October 2002 conference — attended by just six family-court judges, including Dunphy and Stahlin — meant to counteract the negative impact of PAS-like defenses.
For all too often, the language of PAS works. Kelly Fink, one of the 40 women who participated in the recent Wellesley report, knows firsthand the shame and humiliation of being labeled crazy and a brainwasher by family-court officials. The 39-year-old nurse and Natick resident comes across as a formidable personality — she’s smart, articulate, and persuasive. Yet her five-year custody battle at Middlesex Probate and Family Court — during which she criticized judges, GALs, and doctors for how they handled her allegations — ended last August when she lost custody of her school-aged daughter to the man whom she has repeatedly accused of child molestation. The experience has left Fink convinced that, in her words, “the family courts aren’t at all interested in protecting innocent children.”
Fink’s custody battle dates back to summer 1997, when she filed to divorce her then-husband, Jonathan Meier, a 37-year-old engineer and Massachusetts resident. Their marriage, Fink says, was an unhappy, abusive relationship that deteriorated for good soon after the birth of the couple’s daughter, Melissa (not her real name). After a bitter divorce trial in January 1999, Fink was awarded full custody of Melissa. And due to allegations of emotional and physical abuse that Fink lodged against her ex-husband — including charges that he had bruised Melissa’s leg as a baby — Meier got only supervised visitation. Gradually, though, as he received positive marks from a supervisor who monitored visits, Meier was allowed to spend unsupervised time with his daughter.
It wasn’t long after the court loosened the stringent visitation provisions that Fink began to suspect Meier was abusing Melissa. In October 1999, Melissa, then two, returned from a visit with her father and, several days later, complained that, as Fink recalls, “her bottom hurt her.” Fink took her daughter to a doctor, who diagnosed the little girl with bloody, superficial cuts and tears around the vulva. The doctor didn’t consider the injuries particularly revealing, though child-abuse experts like Children’s Hospital’s Newberger say such physical injuries on a toddler “exclude any benign or accidental cause.” Yet something the girl said gave the doctor pause. During the genital examination, according to court records, the toddler told the doctor, “Don’t put your fingers inside.”
Taken aback, the doctor asked Melissa if anyone else ever did such a thing.
Melissa, court records show, replied, “Dad did, I do.”
Concerned, the doctor filed a report of suspected child abuse with the state DSS. When the agency receives these reports, known as “51-As,” says DSS spokesperson Michael MacCormack, it “screens” them to see if they warrant investigation. In this case, the DSS called the GAL assigned to represent Melissa at the time. But the agency then screened out the doctor’s report according to department regulations — something that happens more often than you might think. In 2001, for example, DSS received 64,304 reports of suspected child abuse and neglect. Of those, it instantly threw out 21,828 because, MacCormack explains, “They did not meet our criteria.” Either the child wasn’t in immediate danger, he says, or the alleged abuser wasn’t a primary caretaker. In the courtroom, the agency’s unwillingness to investigate child sexual abuse helped cement the idea that Fink’s allegations were nothing but “distortions” and possible “delusions.” A court-ordered evaluation into the claims concluded that, according to documents, “There is no data ... to indicate that [the child] has been sexually abused by anyone.” And so, the unsupervised visits were allowed to continue.
More than a year later, Fink voiced concerns about abuse again. This time, in April 2001, Melissa, who was now four years old, returned from a visit with her father appearing upset. When Fink asked what was wrong, her daughter told her that “her bottom hurt.” The girl’s genitals, Fink says, looked red and raw. So Fink called the girl’s GAL, who reminded Fink about “problems with past allegations,” as stated in court records. Fink did the only thing she could think to do: she brought her daughter to Children’s Hospital. Melissa’s diagnosis of a “perineal rash” does not specify abuse. But while the doctor was examining Melissa, court records (and an audiotape of the examination provided to the Phoenix) reveal she blurted out to her mother: “That’s where Daddy touches me.”
Melissa’s comment set off a chain reaction. The hospital performed a rape-kit exam and filed a 51-A report with the DSS. The department, in turn, performed a two-month investigation, interviewing Melissa, her parents, and others. In the end, however, the department did not support a finding of sexual abuse — because, as court documents show, Melissa did not make “specific definitive disclosures” about being abused. It was one of 16,637 cases in 2001 where DSS did not substantiate suspected abuse or neglect. In accordance with agency guidelines, the DSS referred the case to the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office, which opened a criminal investigation. State prosecutors discovered that Melissa’s rape-kit exam had yielded traces of DNA from “saliva” on swabs taken from the girl’s genital area. The presence of saliva doesn’t prove molestation; indeed, it could have come from Melissa’s own fingers. Court records show that prosecutors convened a November 2001 grand jury and issued a subpoena ordering Meier to provide a DNA sample, which he did in February 2002. But they’ve since told Fink that the DNA from the rape kit turned out to be too small for testing. In other words, it’s still not known whose DNA matches the rape-kit sample. The Middlesex DA, through its spokesperson Seth Horowitz, declined to comment on the specifics of the criminal investigation except to say that the office “had no positive forensic evidence” at this time.
Her daughter’s disclosures prompted Fink to ask Middlesex family court to issue a no-contact order against her ex-husband and to review the visitation set-up. She filed the motion on April 27, 2001. On July 12, 2001, Meier filed a counter-motion seeking full custody of Melissa. Meier did not return a phone call from the Phoenix seeking comment. Through his Newton attorney, Lisa Marino, he declined to comment on the case. Marino offered this statement: “My client understands the importance of abuse allegations and has always taken them seriously. However, in this case, the allegations are not true.” In court records, Meier has repeatedly denied that he’s ever harmed his daughter. He has claimed that his ex-wife has made “false allegations” against him and has “physically and emotionally” harmed his daughter by subjecting her to repeated sex-abuse investigations that fail to yield any evidence.
In February 2002, Middlesex Probate and Family Court associate justice Beverly Weinger Boorstein presided over the couple’s second custody trial on the new appeals. During the three-day trial, as many as 14 witnesses were called to testify. Yet according to trial transcripts, the court heard far more testimony about the mother’s mental health and parental fitness than about physical evidence of child sexual abuse. At the end of trial, Fink says, Boorstein requested that she bring her daughter to court so the judge could meet her. When Fink showed up at the courthouse on February 27, 2002, she says, the judge offered her an ultimatum. “She said if I voluntarily gave up my no-contact order, she’d allow me to retain full custody,” Fink recalls. “I told her I wouldn’t do that.” Fink’s comments are echoed by her partner, Jason Morse, who accompanied Fink into the judge’s chambers that day. (Fink filed a February 28, 2002, complaint about Boorstein with the Commission on Judicial Conduct, whose investigation confirmed the events at the February 27 meeting yet absolved Boorstein of misconduct.) On March 5, 2002, Boorstein awarded joint physical custody to Fink and Meier. But five months later, she reversed her order and stripped Fink of custody. Fink, the judge ruled, could only see her daughter twice a week, under strict supervision. In the August 5, 2002, ruling — an exhaustive, 28-page summary of the case — Boorstein casts Fink, who suffers from post-traumatic-stress disorder, as a delusional woman whose sex-abuse allegations are false beliefs unsupported by the evidence. Boorstein declined to comment on the case for this article. In her ruling, she states that the “mother’s mental state and her resulting actions will destroy [Melissa’s] relationship with her father and continue to have a negative effect on [Melissa’s] emotional and mental development.”
Fink, who’s appealing Boorstein’s decision, holds a different view: “I feel like she reversed custody just to punish me” for filing a complaint against her with the Commission on Judicial Conduct. Though Fink acknowledges that the judge’s findings deal a severe blow to her credibility, she attributes the punitive judgment to “an effort to psychologically slam me and debilitate me so that I will shut up.” Fink — who attended a battered women’s testimonial at the State House in May 2002, at which dozens of mothers spoke out about problems in Massachusetts family courts — says her experience fits a shockingly similar pattern in custody cases involving child sexual abuse. As she describes it: “It’s [to] pathologize the moms and turn attention away from the kids.”
A threat from the judge
PARENTAL-ALIENATION syndrome also popped up in Jean Johnson’s battle with her ex-husband for custody of their daughter. Johnson (who asked that her real name and other names associated with the case not be used for fear of retaliation by the judge who presided over her custody litigation) believes that recognition of the syndrome pervaded her three-year battle in Plymouth Probate and Family Court for custody of her daughter Julia. Unlike Fink, Johnson, a 40-year-old attorney and Plymouth resident, won custody of her child. But her ex-husband, a man who the Massachusetts DSS insists assaulted the couple’s six-year-old daughter, was awarded unsupervised visitation rights. And the March 2002 decision makes it clear that this arrangement will end if Johnson tries “to alienate the child from the Father” again. In other words, as she says, “I could lose my daughter at any time.” Throughout these cases, Johnson adds, family-court personnel try to reason “around the abuse and turn it against you.”
Johnson filed for divorce in fall of 1999. Within months of the filing, she says, her daughter seemed strange after visits with her father. One time, Julia, who was just three years old, asked her mother if she knew about the “woo-woo game” that she played with her father. When Johnson asked what the game entailed, her daughter explained that “you take off your clothes” and “Daddy sticks them up my bum,” according to court records. Another time, Johnson walked into Julia’s bedroom to find the little girl standing before a mirror squeezing her nipples. Julia’s vagina and anus, Johnson noticed, looked swollen. Johnson took her daughter to a doctor, who chalked up the physical symptoms to stress. The doctor nevertheless filed a 51-A report with the state DSS, which didn’t make much of the sex-abuse allegations. After a 10-day investigation, during which Julia didn’t offer any incriminating details, the agency failed to substantiate abuse. Such a conclusion, explains DSS spokesperson Michael MacCormack, “means that we couldn’t find credible evidence to support allegations, such as a disclosure from the child.” He then adds, “It may be more difficult than you’d expect to find credible evidence of child sexual abuse.”
While the divorce and custody trial proceeded, however, the DSS was again pulled into the case. In April 2000, Julia’s therapist called the department to report that during a therapy session, the little girl had discussed the “woo-woo game” she had played with her father. This time, another 10-day investigation found Julia to be a telling witness. Her descriptions of the “woo-woo game,” as well as the “beatle-bug game” and the “pajama game,” are documented in court records as played when “taking off your clothes” and then “Daddy sticks them up my bum.” As a result, the DSS concluded that Julia’s father was molesting her. Johnson’s ex-husband, a middle-aged scientist, has repeatedly denied the sex-abuse charges in court records.
By the time the couple’s divorce went to trial at Plymouth family court, in October 2001, the evidence against Johnson’s ex-husband seemed so credible that Johnson assumed that his attempt to gain custody “would go nowhere.” The court, however, proved her wrong. According to court documents in the case, the Plymouth County judge issued a seemingly illogical ruling in March 2002 that shocks Johnson to this day. Not only did the judge downplay the DSS’s conclusions, but he assailed Julia’s therapist as “questionable.” Thus the judge ruled that Johnson’s ex had not actually molested his daughter, and that Johnson had pushed the bogus charges “solely [in an] attempt to get back at the Father.” The judge also warned that if Johnson “alienate[s]” Julia from her father, “a change in custody may be the only remaining action that can be taken by this Court to protect the child.”
The decision has left Johnson, who’s filing an appeal, in disbelief. “I’m just devastated,” she says. “I’ve been made to look like Mommy Dearest. I made up the allegations, and I harassed these professionals into investigating” the sex-abuse claims. She then offers, “All these social workers and therapists put their [professional] lives on the line just to make me happy? I don’t think so.”
‘Which would you rather believe?’
ACCORDING TO a well-known 1994 national study of the incidence of child sexual abuse, one in five girls and one in 10 boys are molested before the age of 18 — and 70 percent of them are assaulted by their own fathers. These figures paint an ugly, uncomfortable picture. At the end of the day, it’s probably far easier for people — including judges, GALs, attorneys, and evaluators — to believe that spiteful women will fabricate child-sex-abuse allegations just to gain the upper hand in court.
“Which would you rather believe?” asks Elizabeth Clague, the Brockton attorney who is also representing Fink and Johnson in their appeals. When handling these custody disputes, she has heard family-court officers, judges, and her own colleagues dismiss sex-abuse charges as cases of “he said, she said.” Clinging to this stalemate, Clague theorizes, makes their lives less painful, less complicated. “If you think all these women are sitting on their front stoops and conjuring up lies,” she explains, “you can go home, flip on the television, and not have to worry about child sexual abuse.”
As the studies by California NOW, Wellesley Centers for Women, and Neustein show, what happened to Clarke, [name deleted], Fink, and Johnson occurs more often than you’d think. As Johnson notes, she simply assumed the courts would rule against someone the DSS had found to be a child molester. “I believed the family courts would listen to the facts and do the right thing because I had truth on my side,” she says. “Who’d have thought that court [officials] would not acknowledge abuse and protect children?”
Easy, say family-law attorneys, child-abuse advocates, and child-law specialists. Family courts aren’t equipped to adjudicate criminal matters. They exist to settle divorces, wills, adoptions, guardianships, and other matters related to litigation between family members.
Three recent studies that looked at the outcomes of custody disputes involving child-abuse claims — one study surveyed California courts, one surveyed Massachusetts courts, and a third tracked 300 cases over a 10-year period in courts throughout the country — all came to the same conclusion: the nation’s family courts are failing to protect children from abuse.
“Family courts are not in a position to litigate the complexities of child sexual abuse,” explains Seth Goldstein, a Napa, California–based attorney who represents men and women in custody disputes involving child-sex-abuse charges. Goldstein, who also founded the Child Abuse Forensic Institute, in Napa, says that most family courts are “overburdened” with cases and don’t have time for the lengthy trials and investigations that child-abuse allegations demand. “In many family courts,” he says, “you often have only one sitting judge to hear hundreds of matters that have to do with many, many things, so the courts are compelled to move things along as quickly as possible. The system is just not conducive to [dealing with] child abuse.”
Colorado attorney Alan Rosenfeld, who specializes in representing parents in custody disputes involving child-abuse allegations and has counseled approximately 1000 mothers trying to protect their children from abusive ex-husbands, is blunt: “If we ever sat down to design the worst possible system that protects the smallest number of children, it would look a lot like the family courts look today.”
Nearly 25 experts in custody litigation involving child-abuse claims were interviewed for this article. All had the same three complaints about family court — regardless of which state’s court system they were familiar with:
Family courts do not rely on criminal investigators to examine child-abuse claims. They rely on family advocates called guardians ad litem (GALs), whose charge is to investigate allegations of abuse, abandonment, and neglect and to represent the best interests of the children in disputed custody cases. More often than not, they are licensed psychologists or social workers. Sometimes, they are attorneys. They may be highly trained in their own areas of expertise, but that doesn’t qualify them to evaluate physical evidence of abuse and to interview victims and alleged abusers. Yet in contested custody battles, they are frequently called upon to do just that. Their recommendations carry significant weight in judicial decisions that set the course of a child’s life.
Normal courtroom checks and balances don’t exist in family court. Unlike in criminal and civil court, there are no juries. And family courts do not mandate legal representation. Therefore, the only litigants with attorneys are those who can afford them. In this atmosphere, judges have extraordinary powers and can work with near-complete impunity. It is not uncommon, for example, for judges to hold hearings in which important rulings are made with only one party present (called ex parte hearings); such hearings can violate basic constitutional rights of due process.
Gender bias and traditional stereotypes of how women and men parent children continue to prevail in family court. As a result, while conventional wisdom has it that mothers almost always fare well in family court, statistics show otherwise. In 1996, the Williamsburg, Virginia–based American Judges Association released a report, “Domestic Violence and the Courtroom,” in which it noted that wife batterers and child abusers convince family-court officials that their ex-wives are “unfit” or “undeserving” of sole custody in roughly 70 percent of contested custody battles. A 1989 Massachusetts study commissioned by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) showed that gender bias often hampers the administration of justice for women in custody decisions. It’s true that mothers are almost always awarded full or joint custody of their children in divorce cases where custody isn’t disputed. Yet the study found that when there was a fight over the children, fathers won primary or joint custody more than 70 percent of the time — whether or not there was a history of spousal or child abuse. (See “Changes in Massachusetts Family Courts Since 1989,” this page.) Although the study is 13 years old and a number of things have changed since it was first published, at least 23 states have conducted gender-bias studies since — and all have made similar findings.
AMERICA’S DARKEST SECRET
IT’S HARD TO say how many children are affected in these cases. Massachusetts family courts mediated approximately 9450 custody cases in 2001; multiply that by 50 and you get an extremely rough estimate of how many such cases are heard nationwide every year 472,500. Of these, it’s impossible to say how many involve charges of child abuse. Massachusetts family courts, for instance, do not keep statistics on the types of custody cases litigated. To date, the most reliable and largest national study of the incidence of child sexual abuse in contested custody cases occurred in 1990, when the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, in Denver, surveyed 9000 custody disputes in 12 family courts across the country. Fewer than two percent involved child-sex-abuse charges.
The number is small. But the implications for the children concerned are staggering. Take, for instance, Idelle Clarke’s 16-year-old daughter, who is now living with her father, a man twice found by Los Angeles child-protection workers to have sexually assaulted her.
“This is one of America’s darkest, most shameful secrets,” says Clarke, a 54-year-old Southern California mother whose case has become something of a cause célèbre among the burgeoning community of women and advocates seeking reform of the nation’s family courts. After a nine-year custody battle that began in Los Angeles County Family Courts in 1993 and ended in California Supreme Court last October, Clarke not only lost custody of her daughter, but cannot have any contact with the girl. No phone calls. No visits. Nothing. Family-court judges simply didn’t believe that the girl had been sexually assaulted by Clarke’s ex-husband, Ovando Cowles, even though two separate, exhaustive sex-abuse investigations by LA child-protection workers found that she had been. Instead, judges maintained that Clarke had brainwashed her daughter into making up bogus charges about her father. So now, even though her daughter lives just minutes away from Clarke’s Sierra Madre home, she hasn’t been able to see the girl in the two years since the initial family-court judgment, which prohibited Clarke from going within 100 yards of her daughter. “It’s a punishment greater than those given to serial rapists,” says Clarke, who is now preparing to file a January 14 petition asking the United States Supreme Court to hear her case. Meanwhile, Clarke’s daughter doesn’t just live with the man who’s sexually abused her on at least two occasions. The teenager, who is developmentally delayed, lives with her abuser not understanding that the people who want to protect her, can’t. And that those who can protect her, won’t.
In the small world of contested custody cases in which child-abuse claims arise, Clarke’s situation isn’t an exception. It’s more the rule. Colorado attorney Rosenfeld has seen mothers lose custody of children who’ve contracted sexually transmitted diseases from their fathers or who’ve made graphic disclosures such as “Daddy took Mr. Cocky and I played with him and took a tissue and cleaned it up.” Nevertheless, for years, parents who’ve lost their children to abusers have believed their cases were exceptions. Until Clarke went public with her story.
In 1999, the now-defunct Los Angeles New Times published a detailed account of the prolonged custody battle. Since then, Clarke has fielded countless phone calls from women across the country who, like her, expected to find justice in the family courts, but found something quite different instead. “Rarely a day goes by where I don’t get a call from a mother,” she says. The outpouring inspired her, along with four mothers from California, Alaska, Michigan, and New Jersey, to organize the grassroots group United for Justice, whose members include hundreds of women in 49 states caught in Kafkaesque nightmares in the nation’s family courts. Says Clarke, “Women are being routinely punished and abused if they bring up child-sexual-abuse allegations in the family courts.” And it’s not just Clarke and other mothers who’ve lost custody of their children who make this claim.
New York area sociologist Amy Neustein, along with two co-authors, is writing a critique of the family-court system for Northeastern University Press. In 1988, she established the Help Us Regain the Children Legal Research Center, which tracks custody battles involving child-sexual-abuse claims. Over the past 14 years, she has compiled a database with nearly 1000 cases, and has identified a frequent and disturbing pattern: “the penalization of mothers for bringing these allegations to the court’s attention in the first place.”
In a 1999 study on judicial responses to mothers’ child-abuse complaints, Neustein and a colleague followed 300 cases through the family courts in places across the country for a 10-year period, from 1988 to 1998. Only 10 percent of the 300 cases resulted in what Neustein termed “a positive outcome” — meaning that the mother had won primary custody of her children and the alleged abuser had gotten supervised visits. In 70 percent of the cases, the mothers had to send their children on unsupervised visits and share custody with the alleged abusers. More than 20 percent of the cases led to what Neustein referred to as “a negative outcome” i.e., the mother lost visitation rights altogether. Too often, she concludes, “The system retaliates against mothers with such ferocity that they lose their rights.”
Her research, which entails combing through court transcripts, depositions, sex-abuse evaluations, GAL reports, and judicial findings from the 1000 child-custody cases in her database, has exposed punitive measures commonly issued by judges against mothers who continue to charge child sexual abuse. Family-court judges, for example, hold women in contempt, throw them in jail, scale back their visitation privileges, and even forbid them to seek psychological care for their children. In some instances, judges have gone to the extreme of ordering women not to have any contact — no letters, no phone calls — with their children.
“What I have seen in the family courts goes beyond the maltreatment of any other afflicted class in the history of this country,” Neustein maintains. She ticks off a shocking number of injustices committed against mothers. Family judges routinely refuse to hear evidence of child sexual abuse; fail to give mothers a chance to testify in court on critical matters concerning abuse; hand down judgments against mothers in ex parte hearings without giving them prior notice; and evade the rules that guide courtroom conduct. She says, “People would be flabbergasted by what I have found in the family courts.... It’s as if you’re looking into a world that’s completely outside the normal range of legal conduct.”
DOCUMENTING THE ABUSE
NOT LONG AFTER Clarke’s story was published, the California National Organization for Women (NOW) drafted a friend-of-the-court brief urging California appellate judges to review Clarke’s case, as did the Washington, DC–based legal-watchdog group Judicial Watch. (Her case has attracted an impressive list of notables from the mental-health and legal fields. Among the dozens who submitted letters this year urging the California Supreme Court to review the custody dispute were University of Southern California law professor Susan Estrich, National NOW president Kim Gandy, and former American Psychiatric Association president Paul Fink.) After NOW’s brief was reported in the press, the organization, like Clarke, began receiving e-mails and phone calls from women nationwide describing similar problems. The vast majority of these women, says Rachel Allan of California NOW, had lost custody to husbands or boyfriends believed to be sexually abusing their children. In response to the stories, the group launched a three-year effort to examine the problems women face in California’s family courts. In 2001, the organization posted a 21-page questionnaire on its Web page. Feedback was overwhelming, Allan says; the group received detailed responses from women in every region in the country, including Massachusetts. “Women had expected to find a family-friendly venue [in family court] to make arrangements on divorce and custody,” she explains, “but they found something quite different.”
Last June, after surveying 300 California mothers who had participated in the questionnaire and conducting follow-up interviews, NOW released a 134-page report on the state of the family courts in California. Not intended as a neutral analysis, the document portrays a system that’s “crippled, incompetent, and corrupt” and riddled with abuses against women. Women reported being openly insulted and called “sexist names” by judges, GALs, and court evaluators. Some complained that judges silenced them during hearings while allowing their estranged partners to speak. Others complained that judges refused to let them call their own expert witnesses who’d analyzed forensic evidence in their cases or even to let women testify in custody disputes that would affect their own children. Evaluators and GALs often sided with the fathers and their attorneys, especially when spousal or child abuse arose.
The NOW report found that the most serious problems occurred in custody litigation involving allegations of domestic violence; in 76 percent of the cases surveyed, the fathers were accused of having physically or sexually abused their children. In 50 percent of these cases, the abuse was substantiated with police reports. In 30 percent, court-issued restraining orders had been directed against the fathers. Yet when mothers raised allegations of child abuse in disputes, fathers won sole or joint custody 69 percent of the time. Family-court judges did not permit evidence of the father’s child abuse to be heard in 73 percent of these cases, even though blocking such evidence from court proceedings violates due-process rights. Allan and her colleagues repeatedly found that judges had disregarded compelling evidence of child sexual abuse. Some judges deemed such material irrelevant because of earlier rulings or similar technicalities. Others flouted the rules altogether. “I’ve been in a family court where the judge openly proclaimed, ‘I don’t care what the law says. This is my courtroom,’” Allan says. “In so many cases, judges just ignored the evidence of abuse and the word of children themselves.”
Massachusetts hasn’t escaped these problems. Last November, the Wellesley Centers for Women, at Wellesley College, issued a sharp critique of the Massachusetts family-court system as part of a three-year research effort known as the Battered Women’s Testimony Project (BWTP). The November 25 report, “Battered Mothers Speak Out,” stems from interviews with 40 women from across the state — all of whom had suffered physical, emotional, or psychological abuse during their marriages — and 45 victims’ advocates, judges, and other courtroom personnel. The study found that officials who work at nearly every family court in the Commonwealth regularly commit what the report described as “human-rights violations” against battered mothers. Women complained about a host of offenses: how court personnel labeled them hysterical and unreasonable; treated them with scorn, condescension, and disrespect; failed to give them a chance to be heard in court; and denied them access to sensitive investigations and documents pertinent to their custody disputes.
Fifteen of the 40 women interviewed said their ex-partners retained sole or joint custody of the children — even though all 15 men reportedly abused both their ex-wives and their children. Eighteen complained that judges or family-service officers granted or recommended that abusive fathers get unsupervised visitation with their children. When it came to allegations of spousal or child abuse, 38 women said judges, family-service officers, and GALs had ignored or minimized their claims. Nine of the 40 women said judges and GALs failed to investigate allegations of physical and sexual abuse. And six of the 40 women said that judges and GALs refused to take into account documented evidence of child abuse when deciding their custody disputes. The Wellesley report concluded that family courts across Massachusetts are systematically failing to protect battered women and their children from further harm. As Carrie Cuthbert, one of the report’s five authors and co-director of the Wellesley Centers’ Women’s Rights Network, explains, “Not only is the safety and well-being of mothers and children at stake, but so is battered mothers’ trust in our family courts.” Within the community of battered women and their advocates, she continues, “the family courts have gained a reputation as a place where women don’t find justice.”
Not surprisingly, Massachusetts family-court judges disagree. They condemn the 106-page Wellesley report as skewed because it relies solely on testimony from women with complaints about custody decisions, not those satisfied with their rulings. “It is incomplete and flawed in its methodology,” states Sean Dunphy, the chief justice of the Massachusetts family and probate courts. He maintains that the report’s approach, which frames the 40 women’s accounts in the context of human-rights violations, “may work well for systems in Third World countries, but not for a court in the United States.” He and other judges argue that the women’s testimony would have been strengthened if it had been verified by a review of court transcripts and by interviews with lawyers in the cases. (In fact, the Wellesley report’s authors fact-checked 10 of the 40 stories with court records and other documentation. “In every one, we found the documents thoroughly supported the women’s statements,” says Lundy Bancroft, a report author.)
Nevertheless, Dunphy finds the claim that the state’s family courts aren’t working to be a “broad-brushed statement.” It concerns him, however, “that individuals would have such perceptions and beliefs.” Jeremy Stahlin, associate justice at the Suffolk County Probate and Family Court, concedes that if the complaints outlined in the report were true, “then, yes, it’s a problem.” But he also concludes: “I don’t think the court is predominantly favoring one side or the other in these custody cases, and I find that hard to accept as a premise.”
Complaints about faulty methodology strike advocates as a convenient way to deflect attention from the issues laid out in the controversial reports. That so many women across the state reported strikingly similar accounts should, in and of itself, be cause for alarm, Bancroft says, noting, “It’s shocking that 40 women who don’t know each other would offer the same complaints about the family courts.” He adds, “The family court’s current response to custody disputes, particularly those that involve child-abuse allegations, is repeatedly failing to protect children.”
Losing custody to a child molester
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THE NOTORIOUS Fells Acres day-care and McMartin preschool child-sexual-abuse cases have left behind a terrible legacy: That same year, Karen Henderson of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported on problems in her diocese and beyond. Yet it wasn’t until 2002, when the details of sexual abuse by scores of clergy within the Boston archdiocese were made public, that enough people believed the charges, victims could credibly demand their abusers be held accountable, and law-enforcement and court authorities would finally listen.
So it should come as no surprise that family-court officials often disbelieve charges of child sex abuse — even though few sex-abuse allegations ever turn out to be patently false. Kathleen Coulborn Faller, a professor of social work at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, has done extensive research into child-sex-abuse allegations in custody cases and has found that 70 percent of these allegations were indeed true. Of the other 30 percent, she reports, very few involved parents maliciously conjuring up bogus charges — only 10 out of 215 cases fit that description. Even that number seems inflated, given that four of the 10 cases involved one father who Faller says “admitted that he had filed false child-abuse reports ... to obtain greater access to his daughter.” Thus, the data, she says, “thoroughly debunks the myth that false allegations are rampant in custody disputes.”
Even so, the myth persists. Combine that with gender bias — after all, most claims of abuse are made by women against their ex-husbands or former boyfriends — and you have situations in which mothers find it very difficult to get their claims taken seriously. Eileen King, director of the Washington, DC, office of Justice for Children, a national child-advocacy group, has worked on roughly 100 custody cases involving child-abuse allegations in many states over the past two years, and has seen how gender discrimination comes into play. If a mother who suspects molestation appears distraught in the courtroom (which seems only natural when dealing with the horror of hearing a child say, “Daddy puts his pee-pee in my pee-pee”) she often gets slapped with the “hysterical” label. If she appears composed, the label is “cold and calculated.” Mothers, King observes, “are often put into no-win situations.”
Gender bias against mothers, combined with a culture resistant to believing fathers molest their children, has made for a potent mix, giving rise to a bogus mental disorder called “parental-alienation syndrome” (PAS) that is frequently employed by alleged sex abusers in their custody battles. Essentially, PAS involves brainwashing a child to allege molestation. The syndrome, according to the theory, afflicts mostly “vindictive mothers” who “program” their kids to fabricate claims so they’ll have an advantage in litigation. The brainchild of Richard Gardner, a psychiatrist affiliated with Columbia University (who believes that up to 90 percent of all child-sex-abuse allegations are false), PAS has been referenced in courtrooms in Massachusetts and across the country, even though it’s widely discredited by mainstream mental-health professionals.
Since 1987, when Gardner first coined the phrase “parental-alienation syndrome,” he has provided no scientific data to support it. Most of his 140 or so articles on the subject have not appeared in peer-reviewed medical journals, which require evaluation of articles by fellow professionals before publication. The American Psychiatric Association has not included PAS in its diagnostic manual of certifiable disorders. “It is a non-syndrome,” explains Robert Geffner, a psychologist who has evaluated child-sex-abuse allegations in family-court litigation for 20 years and who established the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Institute, in San Diego. “PAS [is] no medical diagnosis whatsoever. You cannot confirm a syndrome simply by stating that it exists.”
Nevertheless, Gardner’s PAS theory is widely accepted in a legal system seeking neat, convenient ways to get rid of time-consuming custody battles. A prolific writer, Gardner has self-published hundreds of books, audiotapes, and videotapes and has lugged them across the globe to train family-court judges, GALs, and psychologists on how to recognize PAS. “People believe him,” Faller says. “The idea of an alienating parent has taken on a life of its own.” His teachings have become so thoroughly integrated into the language of family law that mothers almost always face a variation on them in court: a mother who alleges abuse is crazy, for instance; or she coaches the kids; or she is crazy and coaches the kids. As King, of Justice for Children, explains, “No one has to cite ‘PAS’ anymore. They say the mother is ‘delusional,’ or that she is ‘destroying the relationship’ with the father. It’s the most common defense in these cases.” Or, as Suffolk family judge Stahlin says, “It’s very common for one parent to say the other is ‘alienating’ or ‘coaching’ the child. Often, it’s the only explanation that the accused can come up with for why the child is saying what he’s saying.” Indeed, Gardner’s influence has become so entrenched nowadays that the Massachusetts Citizens for Children, a statewide child-advocacy group based in Waltham, organized an October 2002 conference — attended by just six family-court judges, including Dunphy and Stahlin — meant to counteract the negative impact of PAS-like defenses.
For all too often, the language of PAS works. Kelly Fink, one of the 40 women who participated in the recent Wellesley report, knows firsthand the shame and humiliation of being labeled crazy and a brainwasher by family-court officials. The 39-year-old nurse and Natick resident comes across as a formidable personality — she’s smart, articulate, and persuasive. Yet her five-year custody battle at Middlesex Probate and Family Court — during which she criticized judges, GALs, and doctors for how they handled her allegations — ended last August when she lost custody of her school-aged daughter to the man whom she has repeatedly accused of child molestation. The experience has left Fink convinced that, in her words, “the family courts aren’t at all interested in protecting innocent children.”
Fink’s custody battle dates back to summer 1997, when she filed to divorce her then-husband, Jonathan Meier, a 37-year-old engineer and Massachusetts resident. Their marriage, Fink says, was an unhappy, abusive relationship that deteriorated for good soon after the birth of the couple’s daughter, Melissa (not her real name). After a bitter divorce trial in January 1999, Fink was awarded full custody of Melissa. And due to allegations of emotional and physical abuse that Fink lodged against her ex-husband — including charges that he had bruised Melissa’s leg as a baby — Meier got only supervised visitation. Gradually, though, as he received positive marks from a supervisor who monitored visits, Meier was allowed to spend unsupervised time with his daughter.
It wasn’t long after the court loosened the stringent visitation provisions that Fink began to suspect Meier was abusing Melissa. In October 1999, Melissa, then two, returned from a visit with her father and, several days later, complained that, as Fink recalls, “her bottom hurt her.” Fink took her daughter to a doctor, who diagnosed the little girl with bloody, superficial cuts and tears around the vulva. The doctor didn’t consider the injuries particularly revealing, though child-abuse experts like Children’s Hospital’s Newberger say such physical injuries on a toddler “exclude any benign or accidental cause.” Yet something the girl said gave the doctor pause. During the genital examination, according to court records, the toddler told the doctor, “Don’t put your fingers inside.”
Taken aback, the doctor asked Melissa if anyone else ever did such a thing.
Melissa, court records show, replied, “Dad did, I do.”
Concerned, the doctor filed a report of suspected child abuse with the state DSS. When the agency receives these reports, known as “51-As,” says DSS spokesperson Michael MacCormack, it “screens” them to see if they warrant investigation. In this case, the DSS called the GAL assigned to represent Melissa at the time. But the agency then screened out the doctor’s report according to department regulations — something that happens more often than you might think. In 2001, for example, DSS received 64,304 reports of suspected child abuse and neglect. Of those, it instantly threw out 21,828 because, MacCormack explains, “They did not meet our criteria.” Either the child wasn’t in immediate danger, he says, or the alleged abuser wasn’t a primary caretaker. In the courtroom, the agency’s unwillingness to investigate child sexual abuse helped cement the idea that Fink’s allegations were nothing but “distortions” and possible “delusions.” A court-ordered evaluation into the claims concluded that, according to documents, “There is no data ... to indicate that [the child] has been sexually abused by anyone.” And so, the unsupervised visits were allowed to continue.
More than a year later, Fink voiced concerns about abuse again. This time, in April 2001, Melissa, who was now four years old, returned from a visit with her father appearing upset. When Fink asked what was wrong, her daughter told her that “her bottom hurt.” The girl’s genitals, Fink says, looked red and raw. So Fink called the girl’s GAL, who reminded Fink about “problems with past allegations,” as stated in court records. Fink did the only thing she could think to do: she brought her daughter to Children’s Hospital. Melissa’s diagnosis of a “perineal rash” does not specify abuse. But while the doctor was examining Melissa, court records (and an audiotape of the examination provided to the Phoenix) reveal she blurted out to her mother: “That’s where Daddy touches me.”
Melissa’s comment set off a chain reaction. The hospital performed a rape-kit exam and filed a 51-A report with the DSS. The department, in turn, performed a two-month investigation, interviewing Melissa, her parents, and others. In the end, however, the department did not support a finding of sexual abuse — because, as court documents show, Melissa did not make “specific definitive disclosures” about being abused. It was one of 16,637 cases in 2001 where DSS did not substantiate suspected abuse or neglect. In accordance with agency guidelines, the DSS referred the case to the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office, which opened a criminal investigation. State prosecutors discovered that Melissa’s rape-kit exam had yielded traces of DNA from “saliva” on swabs taken from the girl’s genital area. The presence of saliva doesn’t prove molestation; indeed, it could have come from Melissa’s own fingers. Court records show that prosecutors convened a November 2001 grand jury and issued a subpoena ordering Meier to provide a DNA sample, which he did in February 2002. But they’ve since told Fink that the DNA from the rape kit turned out to be too small for testing. In other words, it’s still not known whose DNA matches the rape-kit sample. The Middlesex DA, through its spokesperson Seth Horowitz, declined to comment on the specifics of the criminal investigation except to say that the office “had no positive forensic evidence” at this time.
Her daughter’s disclosures prompted Fink to ask Middlesex family court to issue a no-contact order against her ex-husband and to review the visitation set-up. She filed the motion on April 27, 2001. On July 12, 2001, Meier filed a counter-motion seeking full custody of Melissa. Meier did not return a phone call from the Phoenix seeking comment. Through his Newton attorney, Lisa Marino, he declined to comment on the case. Marino offered this statement: “My client understands the importance of abuse allegations and has always taken them seriously. However, in this case, the allegations are not true.” In court records, Meier has repeatedly denied that he’s ever harmed his daughter. He has claimed that his ex-wife has made “false allegations” against him and has “physically and emotionally” harmed his daughter by subjecting her to repeated sex-abuse investigations that fail to yield any evidence.
In February 2002, Middlesex Probate and Family Court associate justice Beverly Weinger Boorstein presided over the couple’s second custody trial on the new appeals. During the three-day trial, as many as 14 witnesses were called to testify. Yet according to trial transcripts, the court heard far more testimony about the mother’s mental health and parental fitness than about physical evidence of child sexual abuse. At the end of trial, Fink says, Boorstein requested that she bring her daughter to court so the judge could meet her. When Fink showed up at the courthouse on February 27, 2002, she says, the judge offered her an ultimatum. “She said if I voluntarily gave up my no-contact order, she’d allow me to retain full custody,” Fink recalls. “I told her I wouldn’t do that.” Fink’s comments are echoed by her partner, Jason Morse, who accompanied Fink into the judge’s chambers that day. (Fink filed a February 28, 2002, complaint about Boorstein with the Commission on Judicial Conduct, whose investigation confirmed the events at the February 27 meeting yet absolved Boorstein of misconduct.) On March 5, 2002, Boorstein awarded joint physical custody to Fink and Meier. But five months later, she reversed her order and stripped Fink of custody. Fink, the judge ruled, could only see her daughter twice a week, under strict supervision. In the August 5, 2002, ruling — an exhaustive, 28-page summary of the case — Boorstein casts Fink, who suffers from post-traumatic-stress disorder, as a delusional woman whose sex-abuse allegations are false beliefs unsupported by the evidence. Boorstein declined to comment on the case for this article. In her ruling, she states that the “mother’s mental state and her resulting actions will destroy [Melissa’s] relationship with her father and continue to have a negative effect on [Melissa’s] emotional and mental development.”
Fink, who’s appealing Boorstein’s decision, holds a different view: “I feel like she reversed custody just to punish me” for filing a complaint against her with the Commission on Judicial Conduct. Though Fink acknowledges that the judge’s findings deal a severe blow to her credibility, she attributes the punitive judgment to “an effort to psychologically slam me and debilitate me so that I will shut up.” Fink — who attended a battered women’s testimonial at the State House in May 2002, at which dozens of mothers spoke out about problems in Massachusetts family courts — says her experience fits a shockingly similar pattern in custody cases involving child sexual abuse. As she describes it: “It’s [to] pathologize the moms and turn attention away from the kids.”
A threat from the judge
PARENTAL-ALIENATION syndrome also popped up in Jean Johnson’s battle with her ex-husband for custody of their daughter. Johnson (who asked that her real name and other names associated with the case not be used for fear of retaliation by the judge who presided over her custody litigation) believes that recognition of the syndrome pervaded her three-year battle in Plymouth Probate and Family Court for custody of her daughter Julia. Unlike Fink, Johnson, a 40-year-old attorney and Plymouth resident, won custody of her child. But her ex-husband, a man who the Massachusetts DSS insists assaulted the couple’s six-year-old daughter, was awarded unsupervised visitation rights. And the March 2002 decision makes it clear that this arrangement will end if Johnson tries “to alienate the child from the Father” again. In other words, as she says, “I could lose my daughter at any time.” Throughout these cases, Johnson adds, family-court personnel try to reason “around the abuse and turn it against you.”
Johnson filed for divorce in fall of 1999. Within months of the filing, she says, her daughter seemed strange after visits with her father. One time, Julia, who was just three years old, asked her mother if she knew about the “woo-woo game” that she played with her father. When Johnson asked what the game entailed, her daughter explained that “you take off your clothes” and “Daddy sticks them up my bum,” according to court records. Another time, Johnson walked into Julia’s bedroom to find the little girl standing before a mirror squeezing her nipples. Julia’s vagina and anus, Johnson noticed, looked swollen. Johnson took her daughter to a doctor, who chalked up the physical symptoms to stress. The doctor nevertheless filed a 51-A report with the state DSS, which didn’t make much of the sex-abuse allegations. After a 10-day investigation, during which Julia didn’t offer any incriminating details, the agency failed to substantiate abuse. Such a conclusion, explains DSS spokesperson Michael MacCormack, “means that we couldn’t find credible evidence to support allegations, such as a disclosure from the child.” He then adds, “It may be more difficult than you’d expect to find credible evidence of child sexual abuse.”
While the divorce and custody trial proceeded, however, the DSS was again pulled into the case. In April 2000, Julia’s therapist called the department to report that during a therapy session, the little girl had discussed the “woo-woo game” she had played with her father. This time, another 10-day investigation found Julia to be a telling witness. Her descriptions of the “woo-woo game,” as well as the “beatle-bug game” and the “pajama game,” are documented in court records as played when “taking off your clothes” and then “Daddy sticks them up my bum.” As a result, the DSS concluded that Julia’s father was molesting her. Johnson’s ex-husband, a middle-aged scientist, has repeatedly denied the sex-abuse charges in court records.
By the time the couple’s divorce went to trial at Plymouth family court, in October 2001, the evidence against Johnson’s ex-husband seemed so credible that Johnson assumed that his attempt to gain custody “would go nowhere.” The court, however, proved her wrong. According to court documents in the case, the Plymouth County judge issued a seemingly illogical ruling in March 2002 that shocks Johnson to this day. Not only did the judge downplay the DSS’s conclusions, but he assailed Julia’s therapist as “questionable.” Thus the judge ruled that Johnson’s ex had not actually molested his daughter, and that Johnson had pushed the bogus charges “solely [in an] attempt to get back at the Father.” The judge also warned that if Johnson “alienate[s]” Julia from her father, “a change in custody may be the only remaining action that can be taken by this Court to protect the child.”
The decision has left Johnson, who’s filing an appeal, in disbelief. “I’m just devastated,” she says. “I’ve been made to look like Mommy Dearest. I made up the allegations, and I harassed these professionals into investigating” the sex-abuse claims. She then offers, “All these social workers and therapists put their [professional] lives on the line just to make me happy? I don’t think so.”
‘Which would you rather believe?’
ACCORDING TO a well-known 1994 national study of the incidence of child sexual abuse, one in five girls and one in 10 boys are molested before the age of 18 — and 70 percent of them are assaulted by their own fathers. These figures paint an ugly, uncomfortable picture. At the end of the day, it’s probably far easier for people — including judges, GALs, attorneys, and evaluators — to believe that spiteful women will fabricate child-sex-abuse allegations just to gain the upper hand in court.
“Which would you rather believe?” asks Elizabeth Clague, the Brockton attorney who is also representing Fink and Johnson in their appeals. When handling these custody disputes, she has heard family-court officers, judges, and her own colleagues dismiss sex-abuse charges as cases of “he said, she said.” Clinging to this stalemate, Clague theorizes, makes their lives less painful, less complicated. “If you think all these women are sitting on their front stoops and conjuring up lies,” she explains, “you can go home, flip on the television, and not have to worry about child sexual abuse.”
As the studies by California NOW, Wellesley Centers for Women, and Neustein show, what happened to Clarke, [name deleted], Fink, and Johnson occurs more often than you’d think. As Johnson notes, she simply assumed the courts would rule against someone the DSS had found to be a child molester. “I believed the family courts would listen to the facts and do the right thing because I had truth on my side,” she says. “Who’d have thought that court [officials] would not acknowledge abuse and protect children?”
Copyright © 2003 Boston Phoenix
Monday, May 30, 2011
Massachusetts Resources For Victims of Abuse
Below is a list of resources for organizations fighting for victims of abuse in Massachusetts. Some provide services. Some provide advocacy. Some are working with larger organizations on the problem of abuse as a whole.
NATIONAL
- Justice For Children - Justice For Children is a national nonprofit organization of citizens concerned about children's rights and their protection from abuse.
- Stop Family Violence.org - Stop Family Violence is a national grassroots organization with a mission to organize and amplify our nation's collective voice against domestic violence
- CAPPA - California Protective Parents Association - Model Protective Parent Activist Group that is paving the way for many others in other states. Association to protect children from incest and family violence through research, education and advocacy.
- Barry Goldstein - a domestic violence writer, speaker, advocate and consultant.
- Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody - Legal Strategies and Policy Issues - Co-edited by Mo Therese Hannah and Barry Goldstein ©2010. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, ABUSE and CHILD CUSTODY brings together experts from the US and Canada for a multi-disciplinary review of the most up-to-date research and recommendations for handling, domestic violence custody cases.
- National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges - The publications of the Family Violence Department (FVD) of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) include comprehensive suggestions for model court practice; legislation in family violence; and policy for collaboration among child protection workers, domestic violence service providers, and the courts. The publications, described below, can be downloaded* or ordered via facsimile (with ordering on-line capabilities coming soon) or through the Resource Center on Domestic Violence: Child Protection and Custody at (800) 527-3223 or (800) 52-PEACE. Quantity discounts may be available, upon request, for some publications.
- The Leadership Council - The Leadership Council is a nonprofit independent scientific organization composed of respected scientists, clinicians, educators, legal scholars, and public policy analysts. We are committed to providing professionals and lay persons with the latest scientific information on issues that may affect the public's health and safety. We also seek to correct the misuse of psychological science to serve vested interests or justify victimizing vulnerable populations -- especially abused and neglected children.
- National Alliance for Family Court Justice - NAFCJ, founded by Liz Richards in 1993. Dedicated for victims of exploitative family and custody court authorities. Work with other protective mothers and incest survivors to reform the system and learn winning strategies Learn more about troublesome custody issues.
- The Battered Women's Justice Project - The Battered Women's Justice Project promotes systemic change within community organizations and governmental agencies engaged in the civil and criminal justice response to domestic violence in order to hold these institutions accountable for the goals of safety and security for battered women and their children.
- Children Against Court Appointed Child Abuse - CA3 is an organization founded by adult Children who suffered Court Appointed Child Abuse - CA3 will be the voice of every child who is a victim of Court Appointed Child Abuse (CA- CA!) CA3 will find a way to hold the family court authorities accountable for their "Failure to Protect" children from abuse. CA3 is determined that 'The CA-CA stops here!'
- (more to come)
MASSACHUSETTS
- Enough Abuse Campaign - The Enough Abuse Campaign is a grassroots movement is gaining momentum across Massachusetts that's providing adults and communities with the knowledge and skills they need to put an end to the silence.
- M.A.S.O. - Massachusetts Survivors Outreach - Providing advocacy, resources, and healing services for victims of abuse in Massachusetts. Our mission is to find unity among advocacy groups, advocacy for victims of abuse in the family courts, health advocacy and provide healing services for victims of abuse. Find us on Facebook
- Massachusetts Law Reform - The Massachusetts Law Reform Institute is a statewide non-profit legal services organization whose mission is to advance economic, racial and social justice through legal action, education and advocacy. MLRI specializes in large-scale legal initiatives and systemic reforms that address the root causes of poverty, remove barriers to opportunity, promote economic stability and create a path to self-sufficiency for low-income individuals and families. For over 40 years, MLRI has been the backbone of the Massachusetts civil legal aid system and is considered one of the premier legal services advocacy and support centers in the country.
- Massachusetts Citizens for Children - Massachusetts Citizens for Children is the oldest state-based child advocacy organization in the country. Our mission is to improve the lives of the state's most vulnerable children through advocacy by concerned citizens. It was founded in 1959 by pediatrician Martha May Eliot, MD, who served as Chief of the U.S. Children’s Bureau and held influential positions in both the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). With active support from Governor Foster Furculo, they established MCC as a permanent, independent citizens’ voice for Massachusetts’ most vulnerable children.
- Protect Mass Children - Our mission is to protect children from sexual predators through education and legislation. We want to protect every child by creating awareness and giving children, parents, educators and law enforcement the tools necessary to defend themselves. By creating awareness and keeping those who harm children imprisoned we can protect children from the devastating effects of childhood sexual abuse. Protect Mass Children is a strong voice for victims, working to protect children from sexual predators.
- MPMCJ - Massachusetts Protective Mothers for Custodial Justice
- NAMI Massachusetts - This is the official profile of The National Alliance on Mental Illness of Massachusetts (NAMI Mass) is a nonprofit grassroots advocacy, education and support organization. Founded in 1982 and obtaining 501(c) (3) status in 1999, the mission of NAMI Mass is to support individuals with mental illness and their families; advocate for nondiscriminatory and equitable federal, state and private-sector policies; and educate the public to eliminate the pervasive stigma surrounding mental illness.
- Lundy Bancroft - Lundy Bancroft is an author, workshop leader, and consultant on domestic abuse and child maltreatment.
- Women's Bar Association - Family Law Project for Battered Women -FLP has two primary missions - The first is to empower domestic violence victims by giving them a voice in their abuse prevention order and family law cases. As such, we seek to prevent further abuse, homelessness, loss of child custody, and to decrease repeated court hearings. The FLP's second mission is to engage lawyers in pro bono service and, thus, make them stakeholders on issues involving low-income domestic violence victims. The FLP meets both of its missions by referring clients to volunteer attorneys trained and mentored by the FLP on issues related to family law and domestic violence.
- The R.O.S.E. Fund - The R.O.S.E. Fund (Regaining One's Self Esteem) is a New England non-profit, based outside of Boston, chartered to break the silence and the cycle of domestic violence (DV) and teen dating violence and abuse (TDVA).
- Jane Doe, Inc. - JDI is a coalition of 60 local member programs working together with our allies to find lasting solutions that promote the safety, liberty, and dignity for victims and survivors of sexual and domestic violence. We work for social change to help create a world free of violence and abuse.
- REACH Beyond Domestic Violence - The role REACH plays in our community is significantly different than when we began in 1981. Our mission has extended far beyond our successful hotline service, to become much more of a catalyst in creating strong, healthy families and communities by offering safe housing, shelter and vital services to women, men, children and families who have experienced domestic violence.
- Employers Against Domestic Violence - Employers Against Domestic Violence (EADV) is a non-profit, membership organization uniting Massachusetts employers with experts in the fields of domestic and workplace violence prevention. Committed to proactively addressing the causes and effects of violence in the workplace, EADV identifies and recommends national and local best practices in the areas of public policy, prevention, intervention and training in order to help employers address the effects of violence on the workplace. EADV promotes more productive workplaces that remain intolerant of all forms of violence by supporting comprehensive and safe interventions for those affected by violence.
- Battered Women's Resources - The Official Website of the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security (EOPSS)
- MassLegalHelp - "Where Do We Go From Here?” is a self-help guide that answers legal questions about getting out of and staying out of domestic violence relationships. This guide is for victims and survivors of domestic violence, the service providers who help them, and other non-lawyers who have questions about these issues.
- DOVE, Inc. - DOVE, Inc. (DOmestic Violence Ended) assists thousands of victims of domestic violence each year through our 24-hour hotlines, emergency shelter and community services. During the last three decades, DOVE has grown from a small emergency shelter to a comprehensive multi-service agency providing life-saving services by addressing the complex issues of domestic violence.
DOVE works with individuals, families, and communities to help them recognize their strengths and achieve their goals. DOVE's services are designed to provide assistance and guidance in identifying safety issues and options, empower victims/survivors of abuse to make healthy choices about their own lives, and educate the community about domestic violence and ways to prevent it. - Massachusetts Office for Victim Assistance - The Massachusetts Office for Victim Assistance (MOVA) was established in 1984 with the enactment of the Commonwealth's first Victim Bill of Rights. Its purpose is to advocate for and assist victims of crime. MOVA's activities are governed by the Victim and Witness Assistance Board, chaired by the Attorney General.
- Protective Mothers Alliance International - PMA is working toward bringing about dramatic reform in family court for protective mothers and their children. PMA advocates for change through education, legislation reform, enforcement of current legislation, community and media outreach and other strategies that may be effective and beneficial. PMA supports the efforts of protective mothers in keeping themselves and their children safe from the abuse of a former partner, and in empowering these mothers to become advocates for themselves and others
- (more to come)
MASSACHUSETTS LEGAL RESOURCES
- Women's Bar Association - Family Law Project for Battered Women -FLP has two primary missions - The first is to empower domestic violence victims by giving them a voice in their abuse prevention order and family law cases. As such, we seek to prevent further abuse, homelessness, loss of child custody, and to decrease repeated court hearings. The FLP's second mission is to engage lawyers in pro bono service and, thus, make them stakeholders on issues involving low-income domestic violence victims. The FLP meets both of its missions by referring clients to volunteer attorneys trained and mentored by the FLP on issues related to family law and domestic violence.
- Massachusetts Law Reform - The Massachusetts Law Reform Institute is a statewide non-profit legal services organization whose mission is to advance economic, racial and social justice through legal action, education and advocacy. MLRI specializes in large-scale legal initiatives and systemic reforms that address the root causes of poverty, remove barriers to opportunity, promote economic stability and create a path to self-sufficiency for low-income individuals and families. For over 40 years, MLRI has been the backbone of the Massachusetts civil legal aid system and is considered one of the premier legal services advocacy and support centers in the country.
- Massachusetts Law Library - Massachusetts Law About Domestic Violence - Massachusetts Laws - Massachusetts Regulations - Massachusetts Guidelines - Selected Case Law
- Massachusetts Law Library - Guidelines for Judicial Practice - Abuse Prevention Proceedings
- Mass Legal Help - The Domestic Violence section of MassLegalHelp has important information for victims and survivors of domestic violence about their rights concerning child support, housing, employment, immigration, making it on your own, criminal complaints, Chapter 209A Abuse Prevention Orders ("restraining orders"), custody and visitation, separation and divorce, paternity, the Department of Children and Families (DCF) that used to be called Department of Social Services (DSS), personal property, and doing a case in the Probate and Family Court. Domestic Violence also has legal forms and samples, booklets, brochures, and pamphlets, and information and links to critical services and resources.
- The Battered Women's Legal Assistance Project - The Massachusetts Legislature established the Battered Women’s Legal Assistance Project in 1993 to provide free legal assistance to low-income battered women seeking long term security for themselves and their children. With funding from the state budget, BWLAP provides legal information, advice and representation to victims of domestic violence in complex family law, abuse prevention and other cases where domestic violence is a critical factor. BWLAP represents victims who suffer from a wide range of abusive, violent, or intimidating behaviors.
- Massachusetts Division of The Department of Justice - The Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions Unit handles the investigation and prosecution of federal offenses involving public corruption, whether such offenses occur at the federal, state, or local level. The unit also handles all civil rights prosecutions, and other cases of particular sensitivity, as assigned on an individual basis.
- The Department of Justice - Office on Violence Against Women - The mission of the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), a component of the U.S. Department of Justice, is to provide federal leadership in developing the nation’s capacity to reduce violence against women and administer justice for and strengthen services to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.
MASSACHUSETTS CASE LAW
- Champagne vs. Champagne - 429 - Mass 324 - Suffolk County - March 4, 1999 - April 9, 1999 - General Laws c. 208, s. 18, empowers judges in the Probate and Family Court to issue permanent protective orders and to incorporate them into judgments of divorce nisi. [326-328]
- Rauseo vs. Rauseo - 50 Mass App.Ct. 911 - January 10, 2001 - 740 NE2d 1063 (2001) Court held that even the sending of flowers by defendant who was under abuse prevention order could be construed by wife as a hostile and threatening act in light of the existing order.
Please keep checking back as this blog will continue to change with resources. Please leave comments or suggestions below of viable resources for victims of abuse in Massachusetts.
Remember ...
TOGETHER WE ARE STRONG ... ALONE WE ARE WEAK!!!!
Let's work together to end abuse once and for all!!!!
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