John Daniels faces more hurdles
J
ohn Daniels, $85,000 and three years into his battle to reestablish a normal relationship with his two children following a custody-by-restraining-order maneuver by his estranged ex, encountered a new roadblock in March.After losing supervised visitation center "privileges" due to his ex's lack of cooperation with the center, he had managed to obtain a court order permitting personal supervised visitation outside of a center. He was informed that visitation would be supervised through an agency recommended by the court at $50 per hour.
Two days before the visits were scheduled to begin, Daniels arrived home to find a message on his phone from the "Co-parenting Corporation," informing him that the fee was raised to $75 per hour, and a $600 down payment was required.
Daniels' long and winding road within the Massachusetts court system has been serviced in the main by Norfolk County Probate and Family Court Judge Christine Harms. His ex-wife and her attendant attorneys and therapists have so far successfully stymied his attempts to reestablish normal contact with his eleven year old daughter and eight year old son.
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Daniels' long and winding road within the Massachusetts court system has been serviced in the main by Norfolk County Probate and Family Court Judge Christine Harms. His ex-wife and her attendant attorneys and therapists have so far successfully stymied his attempts to reestablish normal contact with his eleven year old daughter and eight year old son. |
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The most recent turn of events began at a hearing earlier this year. At a court hearing in March in front of Harms, the issue of the daughter's feminist therapist was broached by John. Judge Harms told John to file a motion to address the issue.
Three weeks later, Daniels was in court to have this motion heard, to answer to the obligatory contempt for a phone call trying to talk with his daughter (the nerve of these fathers...), and to establish a date for his complaint for modification (of custody) which had already been filed.
At the hearing, when Daniels attempted to bring up his motions, Judge Harms stated flatly "I'm not hearing it." Daniels responded by telling the judge that he had witnesses present that had traveled from out of state. "I already tried the divorce case," said the judge.
"But..."
"If you persist I'll have you removed from the court," Harms threatened. For those unfamiliar, forcibly removed from the court means taken to jail.
Realizing that things were not going well for this frustrated father, the family services officer present intervened on Daniels' behalf and convinced him, after arranging a thirty minute recess, to address the only issue that Harms was willing to hear: supervised visitation.
Faced with this Faustian bargain, Daniels relented and agreed to supervised visitation.
Negotiations with the Co-parenting Corp. kidnappers to free the hostages are still underway.