USA / Kentucky: Shared-parenting law goes into effect

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FRANKFORT — On July 1, Kentucky law began to support joint custody with equal parenting time when families separate.

Lawmakers unanimously approved the new law, which research shows is best for children after divorce or separation.

The new law amends KRS 403.280, allowing a court to adopt a prior parental temporary custody agreement as the court’s temporary custody order. The new law also creates a temporary joint custody and equal parenting time presumption, provided each parent files an affidavit requesting his or her portion.

The equal parenting time presumption applies even if parents do not agree on a parenting schedule. The presumption does not apply if it creates a likelihood of abuse or neglect.

Existing child custody arrangements are not affected by the law change.

House Bill 492 was initiated by National Parents Organization and sponsored by Speaker Pro Tem David Osborne, R-Prospect, and Representatives Jason Petrie, R-Elkton, and Robby Mills, R-Henderson.

Gov. Matt Bevin signed the bill and mailed the pen, along with a hand-signed copy of the law, to Matt Hale of the National Parents Organization of Kentucky. Hale worked for four years to make shared parenting the law in Kentucky.

Sen. John Schickel praised Hale during the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, calling him a fighter for Kentucky’s children. Bevin ceremonially re-signed the bill earlier this month to highlight the landmark nature of the new law.

“Children are now more likely to see both parents regularly after a divorce, which is a huge win for the children of Kentucky, considering research consistently shows shared parenting is in the best interest of children when their parents divorce,” Hale said.

“Plus, parents are no longer in the high-conflict winner-win-all and loser-lose-all situation.”

In celebrating the new law, Petrie called the law “landmark custody legislation.” He testified at House and Senate meetings on behalf of the bill. He was joined by Dr. Ryan Schroeder, chairman of the University of Louisville Sociology Department, and Hale.

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Man charged in kidnapping of stepdaughter, 13, and her infant son

October 13, 2016

Source: stltoday.com

A Madison County man captured in West Virginia last month and accused of abducting his 13-year-old stepdaughter and her infant son has been brought back to Illinois.

Christopher M. Derleth, 39, was being held in the Madison County Jail on Wednesday morning.

Authorities say Derleth was found by authorities in a rural part of West Virginia last month with his stepdaughter Katherine Derleth and her 3-week-old son. He waived extradition there and was returned to Illinois.

Derleth is being held in Madison County in lieu of $200,000 bail on charges of aggravated kidnapping and parental abduction.

Katherine and her baby had been reported missing from a foster home in rural Madison County on Sept. 17.

The next week, West Virginia police and Madison County deputies tracked down Derleth after he used a credit card at a convenience store. Katherine and the baby were with him. They were found on Sept. 24 in a remote campsite near Kayford, a small rural mining community more than 500 miles east of St. Louis.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reported that the girl and her son were in good condition. They are in protective custody.

Two weeks before the son was born, Christopher Derleth was barred by a court order from seeing his stepdaughter pending a criminal investigation in Bond County. His stepdaughter had lived with him before the order.

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Kelly Rutherford Refuses To Return Kids To Daniel Giersch In Monaco Amid Custody Battle

August 10, 2015

Source: hngn.com

Despite a recent ruling, Kelly Rutherford is refusing to send her children back to Monaco to live with their father and her ex-husband, German businessman Daniel Giersch.

Kelly Rutherford has refused to return her children to live with their father in Monaco. The “Gossip Girl” actress is in a battle with her ex-husband Daniel Giersch over the custody of their 8-year-old son Hermes and 6-year-old daughter Helena, according to Entertainment Tonight.

The kids were ordered to live with their father in Monaco three years ago. Rutherford recently won the legal right to take her children back to the U.S. for the summer, provided that the kids are returned to the father in Monaco at the end of the appointed stay.

“These past three years waiting for my children to come home have been very difficult. My children were forced to leave the United States in 2012 when they were only 2 and 5 years old,” Rutherford, 46, said. “In May, a judge in California gave me sole custody and brought them home. I am immensely grateful and overjoyed to have them back. Since May, however, the court proceedings have been confusing.”

“My ex-husband recently filed for sole custody in Monaco after causing my children to be declared ‘habitual residents’ there, even though he agreed with California in 2012 that the children’s time in France and Monaco would be temporary, and that the children would retain exclusive citizenship and residency in the United States,” she added, US Weekly reported. “I trusted my ex-husband’s agreement, and cannot now send them away in light of the legal actions taken in Monaco in violation of that agreement by my ex-husband.”

Rutherford argued that since 2 U.S. courts, one in New York and another in California, have said they do not have jurisdiction in her custody battle, it means that no state in the U.S. currently requires her to send her kids away. “Hence, I have decided that I cannot lawfully send my children away from the United States to live in a foreign country, she said, according to People.

Rutherford and Giersch split in 2010 after four years of marriage and have been battling for custody ever since.

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Mum could be jailed for going on the run in child custody battle

June 22, 2015

Source: eveningtelegraph

A mother who went on the run with her three-year-old son during a bitter custody battle could be jailed.

Rebecca Minnock, 35, is facing committal proceedings launched by her ex-partner Roger Williams, 39, after she defied two court orders concerning their son Ethan Williams.

Two court hearings will take place in Bristol this week, which could see the mother-of-one jailed for contempt of court.

Judge Stephen Wildblood QC said would there would be a directions hearing on Wednesday, ahead of the full hearing on Friday. Both would be held in public at Bristol Magistrates’ Court.

Earlier this month her mother, Louise, 52, and her mother’s partner Andrew Butt, 56, were jailed for withholding information about the little boy’s disappearance. Both have since been released.

Miss Minnock, from Highbridge, Somerset, handed herself in to the police in Oxford on June 12 after 17 days on the run. She disappeared on May 27, the day she was meant to hand Ethan over to his father.

Ethan, who was born on January 25 2012, has lived with Miss Minnock since his parents separated in February 2013.

A custody battle began the following month. Miss Minnock made allegations about Mr Williams which a district judge later ruled were false.

On May 27, it was found Miss Minnock exposed Ethan to emotional harm and should only have supervised contact with him. It was ordered that the boy should live with Mr Williams full-time.

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Dead mother loses custody fight to Australian ex-husband

February 14 , 2015

A judge ruled in favour of the woman’s ex-husband at a hearing in the Family Division of London’s High Court.

An English mother has a lost a battle from beyond the grave to stop her two children from living with her ex-husband in Australia.

The woman wrote in her will that “under no circumstances” should her daughter, eight, and son, seven, return to their Australian father.

But a judge ruled in favour of the woman’s ex-husband at a hearing in the Family Division of London’s High Court.

The dispute between her parents and ex-husband began after she died in 2014.

Mr Justice Wood was told the couple had married a decade ago and lived in Darwin, Australia.

The woman, who had cancer, travelled to England two years ago with their children.

Her husband agreed to the trip on the basis that she was going for medical treatment and that it was a holiday for the children.

But, without his knowledge, she had taken legal advice and decided that she wanted stay in England with the children.

Mr Justice Wood said in her will she “made it clear” that she wanted her son and daughter to “have little or nothing to do with their father”.

She had written that it would be “extremely detrimental to their lives” if they returned to their father, and said she wanted a friend or a relative in England to bring them up.

‘Left for a holiday’

The father said they should return to him under the terms of the international Hague Convention.

He said they had been born and had grown up in Australia and it was their habitual residence, and he had never consented to them moving to England to live.

The judge agreed and said the man had been misled by his ex-wife and the children had been wrongfully retained by her.

Neither child objected to returning to their father in Australia, he added.

“The children left Australia in July 2013 for a holiday,” the judge said. “They did not say goodbye to their friends, school or neighbours. They left many favoured objects behind them, fully intending to return.”

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Parental Kidnapping – Slovakian woman gets probation in child abduction case

October 21 , 2014

Source: abc7.com

Parental Kidnapping

A mother accused of keeping her two young sons from their fathers has escaped jail time. Maria Pfeifer was the subject of an international manhunt for violating custody orders and failing to return from vacation in Europe. 

On Monday, Pfeifer, a former Los Angeles resident, was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay restitution.

“The safety of the two sons that are at issue in this case was my primary concern,” prosecutor Deanne Castorena said.

Prosecutors says Pfeifer plead guilty to one felony count of custody deprivation. The sentence imposed Monday allows for Pfeifer, who is nine months pregnant, to travel out of the country.

“I think her departing the country will be the best thing all around for both the adult victims and the minor children involved in this case,” Castorena said.

Pfeifer’s attorneys say their client was pleased with Monday’s sentencing.

“For us, for the defense team, the big result was she’s not serving a day in jail on this case,” defense attorney Dmitry Gorin said.

In 2012, Pfeifer, 32, was allowed to take the boys on a 10-day trip to her native Slovakia and the Czech Republic, but never came back. She was arrested in France last December after violating custody orders that she return with her sons.

She was accused of disguising her sons, then 4 and 10 years old, by trying to pass them off as girls.

Back in Los Angeles, the boys’ fathers teamed up to find their sons, and eventually reunited. Both boys are now with their fathers in Southern California.

“They are not seeking to punish or seek revenge or exact tit-for-tat upon Ms. Pfeifer. They just want to raise their sons in a secure environment without threat of further abduction,” Castorena said.

And while Pfeifer lost her parental rights to the two boys, she hopes to someday reconnect with them.

“Hopefully, at some point, both the fathers will agree that it’s in the best interest of the children to see their mother, and some kind of visitation can be arranged where she’s residing,” defense attorney Richard Hirsch said.

Pfeifer must also pay restitution to the two fathers, one of whom is Robert Pfeifer, a former music executive who served time in prison in connection to the racketeering case against Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano. Prosecutors say most of the undisclosed restitution has already been paid.

Pfeifer’s attorneys say that she plans to leave Los Angeles and return to her home in Switzerland sometime in the next several days.

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Intense Child Custody Disputes are Rarely About the Best Interests of the Child

October 4 , 2014

Source: socialworkhelper 

Child custody disputes are rarely about the best interest of the child, and the stories are all too common. A parent is reported to have abducted their child as part of a long-standing custody and access dispute. Indeed, a quick Google search reveals almost 500,000 hits for the term parental abduction.The term parent alienation yielded over 1 million hits.

For the children, these battles between parents can be scary, particularly when they involve some form of abduction. They are being taken away from a parent who loves them by a parent who also professes the same thing. How can this be? But the abduction is rarely a unique event in the lives of children. They typically have faced years of conflict between parents. The list of what children are exposed too is long:

• Parents yelling at each other;
• Arguments in public at custody exchange places;
• Put downs of the other parent;
• Denial of financial support as a means of getting back at a parent;
• Refusal to allow a child to bring favourite toys or clothes to a visit;
• Efforts to get the child to take sides.

It doesn’t take much imagination to come up with a variety of other ways that parents seek to get back at each other. Too often, courts become part of the toolbox used by an angry parent. Anyone who has worked in this area can tell stories of a parent (too often representing themselves in court) filing petition after petition against the other parent. There are also the tragic cases where a parent kills the child. Here in Alberta, we recently saw the death of 9-year-old Amber Lucius. It is believed that her mother killed her. The media reports a six-year custody battle.

Courts are typically more focused on parents who can manage to get along or at least will honour the orders of the courts. They are not as effective with cases where the parent simply ignores the court orders. While this will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, there is no doubt that the defiant parent will have created much havoc before the court holds that parent to task. Many will never get held accountable as the other parent just gives up – they can’t manage the battle any longer or they are out of money to defend themselves in court.

Child protection systems are often reluctant to get involved. They feels that a competent justice system is in place through family and divorce courts. Yet, these more extreme cases carry on creating damage to the child. A study just published in the journal Development and Psychopathology researchers Raver, Blair and Garrett-Peters showed that children who are exposed to verbal and physical aggression between parents have long term negative effects which include the ability to identify and regulate emotions. In other words, they suffer from a form of emotional abuse. Conflict between parents warring over custody and access can fit this description.

Child protection should get involved in these cases. They can bring another force of control against the non-compliant parent. In more extreme cases that might lead to more intrusive arrangements by child protection where a child is removed to kinship or foster care. These child custody disputes, while under the guise of the best interests of the child, are far from it. Society needs to be willing to protect the child and child protection may need to be one way to do that when other court based interventions fail.

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There were 64 cases of children being abducted from Ireland last year

September 12 , 2014

Source: thejournal.ie

THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE dealt with 109 new cases of child abduction last year, 45 relating to children entering the country and 64 leaving.

The department acts as the Central Authority for International Child Abduction and its annual report says that, in total, they dealt with 208 new cases last year.

This total also includes cases of  care orders and access applications as well as international child placements.

Including ongoing cases, the authority dealt with a total of 346 cases in 2013.

The abductions related primarily to suspected parental child abductions according to Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald.

“Parental child abduction is a growing problem globally reflecting the greater mobility of people around the world and all the consequences of this,” she said today.

Ireland is no different and it is important that we are proactive in working with central authorities in other states in resolving complaints regarding international parental child abductions where they arise.

About half of the cases dealt with last year related to abductions to or from the United Kingdom.

Of the 138 ongoing cases of child abduction, 51 were incoming and 87 were outgoing.

Upon the publication of the report, Fitzgerald said that she hoped many cases could be resolved by families themselves but added that, in most cases, legal remedies are required.

“The resolution of issues around parental child abduction is usually by international law,” she said. “But I would encourage any family to try to resolve their differences before such situations arise and avail of the services available to mediate solutions in the best interest of the children and all those involved.”

Fitzgerald advised families that the Family Mediation Service in the Legal Aid Board can help families reach agreement without having to resort to court.

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Turkish child abduction laws

September 3, 2013

Source: todayszaman.com

In cases of child abduction by a family member, it is often the case that either the mother or the father takes the child (or children) to another country on vacation, never to return home.

For this reason, the number of child abduction cases spikes in the summer months; international child abduction is almost a seasonal crime in Turkey. I have written about child abduction and Turkish legislation related to this offense a couple of times before, but it is relevant to revisit the subject at this time of the year. What is international child abduction? It is basically the removal of a child from the home (usually by a parent before a divorce). According to the Hague Convention, “The removal or the retention of a child is to be considered wrongful where: a) it is in breach of rights of custody attributed to a person, an institution or any other body, either jointly or alone, under the law of the state in which the child was habitually resident immediately before the removal or retention; b) at the time of removal or retention those rights were actually exercised, either jointly or alone, or would have been so exercised but for the removal or retention.” It is important that custody rights are enjoyed and exercised jointly at the time of removal or retention. “Habitual residence” is the most important element of a child abduction case, as it defines the place where the child used to live before the abduction. Is Turkey party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction? Yes, Turkey signed the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction on Jan. 21, 1998. Provisions in treaties and other international agreements are incorporated into Turkey’s domestic law and cannot “operate directly” in the domestic sphere, the must be “transformed” into domestic law by ratification and approval of ratification. Under Article 90 of the Constitution, the ratification of any international agreement concluded between states or international entities (such as public international organizations and the Republic of Turkey), shall be subject to adoption by the Parliament by a law approving the ratification. The convention entered the Turkish domestic code on Feb. 15, 2000, when it was published in Turkey’s Official Gazette (No. 23965). Turkey signed the convention, but accepted Article 26 — governing costs — with modifications. This article stipulates that each government shall bear its own costs in applying the convention. Turkey has modified it as follows, “The Turkish Republic shall not pay judicial [including court proceedings] expenses, legal counsel, lawyers’ fees or any kind of expense or fee regarding the return of the child.” According to this amendment, Turkey’s government shall not be responsible for paying for the parties’ lawyers or other counsel’s costs; however, all other aspects of the convention have been incorporated into the Turkish legal code. NOTE: Berk Çektir is a Turkish lawyer and available to answer questions on the legal aspects of living and doing business in Turkey. Please kindly send inquiries to b.cektir@todayszaman.com. If a sender’s letter is published, names may be disclosed unless otherwise is expressly stated by the sender. DISCLAIMER: The information provided here is intended to give basic legal information. You should get legal assistance from a licensed attorney at law while conducting legal transactions and not rely solely on the information in this column.

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We Can Recover Abducted Children From Any Country in The World

July 14 , 2013

“After all my years of experience as Worldwide Medical Director for the worlds largest medical assistance company, I found only ABP World Group capable of providing the unique service of non-violent recovery of  an abducted child.

It is very difficult to find a company like ABP World Group that can provide the experience, honesty, integrity, and assets to actually recover an abducted child safely and at a reasonable cost. I hold ABP World in highest regard and recommend them whole heartedly. The world is simply a better place because of the work they do”. 

From A Child Recovery Operation in Spain – Documented by the Norwegian TV2

Martin Waage, the Managing Director of the internationally recognized security firm ABP World Group, and head of the firm’s international child abduction recovery division is warning parents all over the world that the holiday Season is considered one of the highest periods for international parental child abduction, and that parents, particularly those who are in volatile multi-cultural relationships and who feel the other parent may have intent to illegally leave the country with the children of their relationship must take extra precautions in order to protect their children’s safety.

ABP World Group knows that some countries are seen as Safe Havens for child abductors mainly because of the legal system, but also the fact that to recover a child from many of these countries has been close to impossible. This often combined with a too high risk for all the involved.

If ABP World Group finds the risk extremely high and that launching an operation will lead to personal danger or damages, our personnel will stand down. Instead ABP World Group is ready to start a negotiation process immediately and without any bureaucracy delay. This is most important because time is critical when it comes to any child abduction.

ABP World Group`s Martin Waage on Russian Channel One about International Parental Child Abduction ( IPCA)

ABP World Groups specialists in the new task force, have formed more than 12 years of experience from IPCA cases in mind. The operators in the task force are the best of the best- Team leaders from many different countries Special Forces units, and are trained to do whatever it takes, wherever it takes, whenever it takes. This means that recovery operations in countries like Japan, Philippines, Middle East and North Africa etc. will be done with a great aspect of safety and success.

ABP World Group will under these operations, use any necessary means and type of logistics solutions ,to be sure that no criminal child abductor should never again feel safe- or out of reach from our justice.

Linked article to ABP World Groups latest child recovery from Japan: Norwegian Child EXTRACTED from Japan thanks to quick work by ABP World Group with assistance from The Japan Childrens Rights Network. 

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