Custody Wars: My Lawyer Suggested that I Fabricate a Child Abuse Allegation!

Our guest contributor this week is Judianne Cochran a nationally recognized expert/consultant in the following disciplines: sex offender profiling; false allegations in custody cases; interstate and international parental abduction; interstate custody and parental alienation. She has testified in numerous Courts throughout Ohio and the country. Judi presently resides in Columbus, Ohio.

jc_abuse.jpgIn recent years there has been a steady and alarming increase in the use of false allegations of vague, unsupported claims of domestic violence and even vaguer claims of child abuse, used solely in an attempt to find a shortcut to a presumed better position in custody cases. What is more alarming is the observation that more often than not the attorneys of record for the litigants making these claims have been those unschooled in and relatively new to the family law arena, who have chosen to step outside their actual specialty and add a minor “division” of family law to their practices. Often, a new, young, unskilled associate is added to the practice to handle these family law issues.

Some of these practitioners use this mechanism so frequently that simply hearing the name of the attorney leads one to assume that automatically there will be a “smoke and … Read More... “Custody Wars: My Lawyer Suggested that I Fabricate a Child Abuse Allegation!”

The FBI has Registered the Local Children Abducted to Japan as “Missing Children”

swaim2.jpgHere is an update about our client, Kent Swaim, whose two sons were abducted to Japan by their mother, published in the DDN on September 8, 2010.

Abducted Clayton boys registered on national criminal justice list

Authorities can use designation to urge Japanese to send sons back to father.

By Mary McCarty, Staff Writer Updated 1:27 AM Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Clayton father Kent Swaim has won an important victory in his quest to be reunited with the two young sons he hasn’t seen since his former wife fled with them to her native Japan two years ago.

The boys finally have been registered with The FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC), a computerized index of criminal justice information, including missing children.

Swaim’s plight was featured in an Aug. 15 Dayton Daily News story. The Wright-Patterson Air Force Base master sergeant had long been frustrated by his inability to convince authorities to enter the children in the database.

“This gives the U.S. State Department and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children the tools they need to help me and take this next step,” Swaim said. “It gives them the authority to plead with the Japanese authorities to Read More... “The FBI has Registered the Local Children Abducted to Japan as “Missing Children””

A Local Case of “Child Abduction” Involving the Country of Japan

kent_swaim.jpgOn October 24, 2009, our Ohio Family Law Blog published an article entitled, “U.S. Father Arrested In Japan For Picking Up Children ‘Abducted’ By Ex-Wife…The Rest Of The Story”!  On Sunday, August 15, 2010, the Dayton Daily News published a human interest news story entitled, “Dad With Custody Can’t Get Kids From Ex-Wife In Japan”.  The 2009 article involved a Father from the State of Tennessee having a former Wife secret his two children away to the Country of Japan without his knowledge or consent. The most recent incident reported in the Dayton Daily News involves a Father residing in the State of Ohio whose Wife secreted his two children to the Country of Japan without his knowledge or consent before the termination of the parties’ marriage.  The subject Father, Kent Swaim, is a client of our firm.  He has given us permission to share his story!

Facts of the Kent Swaim Case:

  1. Kent Swaim (“Husband/Father”) is an active duty member of the United States Air Force.  While serving his country in Okinawa, Japan, the parties met at an ice cream parlor on the island.  They dated one another and he later married Miyuki on May 21, 1999.  
Read More... “A Local Case of “Child Abduction” Involving the Country of Japan”

Get Your Ex’s Consent To Travel Abroad With Your Minor Child, Avoid Feeling Like You Just Went Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel!

child_travel.jpgIf you are planning a foreign vacation this summer, you had better plan ahead to determine all the necessary travel documents that you will need.  This can be a much more complex issue than one might think.  A good place to start is the U.S. Department of State International Travel website or you can call them at (877) 487-2778.

I do not intend to try to outline all the various documents required for each international destination, but rather to alert our readers of a requirement that is more obscure.  In recent years, concerns about international child abductions have increased; and as a result, new travel restrictions have been imposed including border officials becoming much more cautious when they encounter a child traveling without both biological parents.  Just having a child’s birth certificate is not enough.  It is wise to bring a copy of the legal custody orders with you.  But in addition, did you realize that a child departing the U.S. and traveling with only one parent, grandparents, a guardian, or another adult or group, must have a notarized Travel Consent Authorization document from both birth parents or legal guardians?

This is true even if you are planning a quick … Read More... “Get Your Ex’s Consent To Travel Abroad With Your Minor Child, Avoid Feeling Like You Just Went Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel!”

Child Abduction a Worry? Do You Have a Passport Block in Place?

abduction.jpgFor those of you that read our Ohio Family Law Blog regularly, you are familiar with problems that may arise when your children travel internationally.  Specifically, one parent may abduct your child to his or her home country.  Another issue may be that you send your child to visit his or her parent in another country and that parent refuses to allow the child to return.  If the country that the child is in is a signatory to the Hague Convention, there are mechanisms that may assist the parent in obtaining the child’s return.  This process, however, can be costly, time consuming, and produce uncertain results.  So you ask, what steps can you take to protect your child from ever being placed in that position?

The United States Department of State has anticipated that very problem and has instituted a program that may alleviate some of those fears.  The Children’s Passport Issuance Alert Program (“CPIAP”) was established to fight child abduction of any kind.  Essentially, the program creates a protocol where a parent or both parents is contacted if there is a passport application made on behalf of a child who is registered.  The parent who is notified then has … Read More... “Child Abduction a Worry? Do You Have a Passport Block in Place?”

In Camera Interviews of Children in Divorce Court

camerain.jpgWhat is an in camera interview? The phrase “in camera” is a Latin term defined in Black’s Law Dictionary as: “In chambers; in private.”  The interview does not involve a camera or a videotape at all!  If a party is asking for the Court to have an in camera interview of a minor child, the request is for the Judge or Magistrate to interview the minor child privately with neither parent or his/her attorney being present.  An Appellate Court in Michigan said it very well years ago . . .

“A child custody determination is much more difficult and subtle than an arithmetical computation of factors.  It is one of the most demanding undertakings of a trial judge, one in which he must not only listen to what is said to him and observe all that happens before him, but a task requiring him to discern and feel the climate and chemistry of the relationships between children and parents.  This is an inquiry in which the court hopes to hear not only the words but the music of the various relationships.”  Dempsey v. Dempsey, 96 Mich. App. 276, 289 (1980).

What is the goal of an in cameraRead More... “In Camera Interviews of Children in Divorce Court”

They Fight For America and Upon Return Must Fight For Their Children…

mturner.jpgRecent articles and news programs have focused upon active duty military members who have returned from overseas tours of duty (often in the Middle East) to find themselves engaged and involved in “custody battles” with former spouses who are arguing it would be in the “best interests” of the minor child/children to remain with the parent who has provided care and custody during the year(s) the military parent was deployed overseas.

Michael R. Turner, R-Ohio, a member of the House of Representatives, has been trying for the past three to four years to pass an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA”) which would provide military parents child custody protection while they are serving out-of-country on active duty with any branch of the military service.  To read Turner’s proposed amendment, click here. In a pointed letter directed to the Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates, on September 30, 2009, Representative Turner wrote:

“What is particularly troubling (to me) is that the Department of Defense has misplaced priorities with regard to federal protections for service members.  It has no objection to the FY10 NDAA House language allowing service members to cancel their cell phone contracts without penalty after orders Read More... “They Fight For America and Upon Return Must Fight For Their Children…”

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