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November 16, 2005
Fathers' Rights Activists Ignore An Abused Child
Update November 23, 2005: Hello, Wendy McElroy readers. Rather than rely on old, misleading, and cherry-picked information you've received from McElroy and other fathers' rights activists like Glenn Sacks when it comes to "Breaking The Silence: Children's Stories", I suggest you visit my web site about the documentary. Fatima Loeliger's mother, Sadiya Alilire, has had custody of her daughter for several years. Fatima wants the custody case to stop. She wants to continue to live with her mother, whom she says has never abused her. She wants to spend her remaining high school years living like a normal kid, but she can't do that if her father keeps taking her mother and herself back to court over and over again. Listen to what Fatima says, rather than relying on people who are attacking her, her mother, and the documentary. "Breaking The Silence: Children's Stories" brings to light cases where abused children have been awarded to the custody of their abusive fathers. Children's voices are not being heard, and fathers' rights activists have demonstrated that they too are not listening. In their angry campaign against the documentary and Sadiya Alilire, as well as the way they are completely ignoring Fatima Loeliger (or giving her lip service which doesn't help her any), fathers' rights activists are mirroring the treatment given to abused mothers and abused children. "Breaking The Silence" has been shown to legislators and others who work with abused children in several states. It is scheduled to be shown more in 2006. PBS has released an internal memo that was leaked to fathers' rights activists that shows it is giving its employees a means of responding to the vitriol in e-mails, letters, and phone calls coming from fathers' rights activists. PBS looks like it is not caving to pressure from bully tactics used by angry fathers' rights activists. I have the memo on my web site. Good for PBS.
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Fathers' rights activists are hell bent on continuing their relentless attacks against "Breaking The Silence: Children's Stories", protective mother Sadiya Alilire, and her daughter Fatima Loeliger. They are ignoring the fact that the documentary is about the children who are saying that they have been abused by their fathers. Since they are heavily attacking Sadiya and the documentary, yet ignoring what Fatima has had to say, I thought it would be appropriate to post Fatima Loeliger's statement that she wrote after Glenn Sacks posted his web page that attacks her mother - and her. Remember that Sacks had originally entitled the web page that he buried Fatima's initial testimony on as "The Opposition's Side Of The Story". A teenaged girl's own story of abuse at the hands of her father and stepmother is seen by fathers' rights activists as "The Opposition". As I have noted elsewhere, that was one hell of a Freudian slip. Sacks noticed his slip after I brought it up, and changed the name of the page to "Sadia [sic] Loeliger's Side Of The Story". That is still a slip. It's is not only Sadiya's side of the story. It is also Fatima's. She wants to live out her remaining high school years as a normal kid, she wants to remain living with her mother, and she wants the custody case to stop. Fathers' rights activists don't care about that.
Here is Fatima Loeliger's statement refuting what Glenn Sacks has put up on his web site. It is also available in PDF format on my web site.
It's clear from the way that they are acting that fathers' rights activists aren't the least bit concerned about a child who has described the abuse she has experienced in her fathers' and stepmother's household.
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Statement of Fatima Loeliger
November 10, 2005
The documentary "Breaking The Silence: Children's Stories" is not about my mother.
It is about me. I want to clear up a few facts.
First, I would think my father Scott Loeliger, MD would not want his name in public, since he ought to be worried it would ruin his reputation as a family practitioner (yes, he is a FAMILY practitioner). The producer used another name for me, Amina, in the documentary to protect me and my parents from having our names out there.
However, he brought his own name up by sending information to a reporter and I actually am happy to have my full name used. It is Fatima Alilire Loeliger.
For the last three years I have been, with interruptions by my father, very happy at my mother's house. I have been excelling in school with a 4.2 GPA and, as the attachment states, a regular in our city newspaper. My father, however, has made this transition increasingly difficult. Instead of nurturing and supporting my development during these tumultuous teen years, he has been the cause of most of the anguish in my life and a continual source of stress and instability for me. Since I turned 13 three years ago, my father has placed me in voluntary foster care twice, called the cops on me five times, stolen 2 cell phones, repeatedly emotionally abused me by making derogatory comments towards my family and attempted to admit me to a psychiatric ward, attempted to transport me to a cult program across the country for "mommy detox", harassed my school, harassed my sports teams, defamed me in my local newspaper, defamed me on the Internet, sent a private investigator to track me and photograph me, stalked my friends, and, last but not least, denied me proper health care coverage. This man has accomplished all these things in my life in only three years. Prior to my teenaged years, my father has committed such atrocities as coming to watch me take baths naked while he records our conversations, cut me off from contact with my mother without contact for three years, and made me a prisoner in his own home. I cannot name all that my father has done to me because there are so many things that were I to dwell upon them, I would probably experience severe depression and a nervous breakdown. Yet, even after all this, my father still hounds me in court at the age of 16 and is defaming the accomplishments I have achieved through the PBS documentary, "Breaking The Silence: Children's Stories". All that I stated on the documentary was true; it was my life and first hand experiences, and nothing more, that I related to the American public. Though my father doesn't like it because it exposes him for who he truly is, it is still unwaveringly valid. All I would like for my last two years before high school is to finally experience a childhood that my father has denied me. Even after all this, the only thing I would ask of my father would be to withdraw from court and allow me this opportunity that he has previously thwarted. Seeing my sacrifices, I as I assume all logical persons, would not consider this a fanatical request. To the contrary, it is the minimum that I deserve from the man who has wrecked so much damage upon my life. I am old enough to make this decision.
I want to answer a few questions you might have.
1. Did my mother hit me?
No. A couple of times she spanked me on the butt. I talked about that in the documentary.
2. Did it upset me?
Yes. It always upsets children to be spanked. But for now it is legal to spank your child on the butt. My mother was not arrested or prosecuted for anything my father said she did. By the way, my father Scott Fredrick Loeliger is a wealthy doctor who has lots of friends in our small town system.
3. Was I put in the custody of my father when I was eight?
Yes. My father took me away from my mother when I was eight by using CPS. He took me to a CPS worker and to a therapist friend of his who claimed I told them that my mom abused me. I was very confused at the time because my father kept telling me that my mom was doing things to me. He wanted me to say that my mom was abusing me. I know I never told them that my mom abused me, but I ended up being taken away from her anyhow. I never understood what had happened, and why I couldn't see my mom. Later, when I was 13, I ended up at CPS again, because I didn't want to live with my Dad because of the way he was treating me. This time, when I told CPS worker Jennier Mitchell and her CPS supervisor that my father was abusing both me and his adopted child they said I was lying and manipulative. Apparently, 8 year olds are more reliable than 13 year olds in processing information. At least they are easier to coach.
4. Did your father have any connections at CPS?
Yes, in Tehama County where he used to live, my father was close friends with the Director of CPS, Randi Gottlieb-Robinson. He had taken me on family vacations with her and her family. Randi helped my father when he had me taken away from my mom when I was 8, and I believe she helped him again when I was 13 and he put me into foster care.
5. Did my father tell me that my mother was a whore and a drug addict?
Yes. He alluded to it frequently. He told me that is why I had been taken away from her. Of course, that was a complete lie. My mother is a very clean woman and has never used drugs.
6. Could I imagine a loving father saying such things about a mother?
Not a loving father. But my father had already shown that my well-being is not his main concern. If he were a loving father he wouldn't have ruined my childhood like he did, and continues to do.
More below the fold.
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Update November 23, 2005: Hello, Wendy McElroy readers. For some reason, McElroy has linked to only half of my post. This is a post of Fatima Loeliger's own statements about the abuse she had subjected to in her fathers' household. She wrote it this month, 2005, in response to Glenn Sacks attacking her on his web site. I recommend McElroy's readers scroll to the top of this post, and read it in its entirety. I include an update at the top of the post. What is Wendy McElroy trying to pull by linking to only a portion of this post? Does she want to negate what Fatima Loeliger had said about abuse she had experienced from her father, as well as her statements saying she had never been abused by her mother? Scroll to the top and read the whole thing. Please don't rely only on fathers' rights misrepresentations of the facts. Read what a teenaged girl - Fatima Loeliger - had to actually say about her fathers' abuse. It should open your eyes.
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7. Did my father refuse to let me see my mother at all for three years?
Yes he said she wasn't healthy for me. He said she could have seen me if she wanted to but she couldn't stay "clean" long enough to make her necessary therapy. He said she was dangerous and unhealthy. Unknown to me, while he was telling me these things, my mom was actually filing for bankruptcy because of her legal bills, and still fighting to get me back.
8. Would a loving father refuse to let his daughter see her mother?
No. A loving father would know how important mother/daughter relationships are in a child's development and would not only sanction a child to see her mother but encourage their relationship.
9. Did my father refuse to listen to me when I said I wanted to see my mother?
Yes. It was taboo to even mention her name in his household. Anytime I showed an interest in seeing my mom, I was treated badly, and was ignored and given the "cold shoulder" as a form of punishment. My father would also say that I wasn't ready to see her and that I didn't know her as well as he did. He said that she bruised me emotionally and that I didn't know it. He said she was a recovering drug addict and was unreliable as a mother beacuse "we know that she abused you."
10. Did my father throw his third wife against the hall wall?
Yes. They were fighting and yelling at each other in front of their adopted son. I came out of my room to see what was going on, and saw that my father, in a rage, had thrown his wife against the hall wall and knocked her down. Fights were routine in their household when I lived with them.
11. Did that scare me to see my father throw his wife against a wall?
It scared me tremendously. He's 6 foot 3 and big. I thought I was next. In fact, I was very afraid of him.
12. Did I refuse to live with my father and his wife because they were rotten to me?
They were more than rotten. They were abusive. They called me horrible names and told me I was "evil" and "worthless". I couldn't handle that I had a healthy loving home with my mother that I couldn't experience because my father was using me to hurt my mother. I was his trophy. He felt he had "won" me in the custody battle. I was crushed and unhappy.
13. Did my father put me into foster care instead of with my mother when I refused to live with him?
I ran away and when the police took me into custody I told them that I wanted to go live with my mom. They called my father and he ordered them to put me in foster care and if they called my mom he would sue them. He told me that I would have to stay in foster care until I was 18 unless I agreed to come back to his house. He told me I would never see my mom, sister or brother again. I was 13 years old at the time. I didn't do anything other than initially running away. I have never threatened or harmed anyone, committed crimes of any sort, or anything else that could justify him putting me in foster care. My only apparent crime was wanting to live with my mom.
14. Did I prefer to live in foster care rather than with him and his wife?
Yes. I had to choose between two evils. At least in foster care I wasn't afraid for my safety. I was alway scared in my dad's house. There were times when I thought he might kill me. I knew if he did, he was so well-connected that nothing would probably happen. He could get away with anything in that remote county (Tehama) where he worked in the clinic as a doctor.
15. Did my father promise me I could live with my mother after he got tired of paying for foster care?
He said that if I moved with him for three months and showed all his friends and family how "perfect" and "rehabilitated" his family was that I could go back to my mom. He just wanted to show everyone he got his trophy back. That is all I am to him. A symbol of his controlling superiority.
16. Did my father trick me at the last minute and say I could not live with my mother?
He didn't trick me. He just blatantly broke his promise. He said I didn't deserve to go live with my mom. He said I was "treating him shitty" and I hadn't treated him well enough and his wife didn't like the way I acted.
17. Did I feel betrayed by my father?
Yes. I felt beyond betrayed. It felt like salt in a wound because I trusted him against my better instincts and gave him a second chance to be a good father even though he didn't deserve it. I was the "bigger man" in the relationship. I forgave everything. I was the one who suffered. It was beyond betrayal.
18. Did he finally let me go to my mother's house?
No. I ran away. He refused to keep his promise to allow me to peacefully visit her so he forced me to take drastic measures and endanger myself to travel through unsafe places in order to get to my mom. The District Attorney's office saved me when they let me stay with my mom.
19. Did my father go to the District Attorney's office and pitch such a fit that he had to be removed?
Yes. He threatened to sue the man in charge of finding me and had to be asked to leave multiple times. It scared me to see my father lose control like that. He is usually a pathological liar who can always maintain his composure around important people, which is how he has convinced so many people to believe him. It was unsettling to see him lose his composure and made me wonder what he might do next?
20. Did the District Attorney's office write a letter to the judge saying that my father is out of control?
Yes. If I have a guardian angel, it is Rick Gore of the Yolo County District Attorney's Office. He saw the truth of my situation and let me stay with my mom. Without his help, and the help of the late Assistant District Attorney Frank McGuire, I would have ended up on the streets. The reports they wrote about my father finally revealed the truth about him. Every day I wake up and in my heart thank Rick Gore for his help.
21. Did the judge give my mother full custody of me?
Yes. In Yolo County I finally received the help that I needed and competent uncorrupt court officials who listened to me. The focus was finally upon me, rather than on what my father wanted.
22. Did my father invite two people from the cult-like Rachel Foundation when I went to visit him?
Yes. When I went to visit him for a weekend, they were at his house and tried to "interview" me. They hounded me outside my bedroom door for 3 days. I didn't eat or drink or leave my room at all during this time. At the time I didn't know their intentions but it just didn't feel right. I was angry and scared at the same time, but I stood tall and strong.
23. Did they try to get me to go to Maryland to their facility to be "treated"?
Yes. They were based in Maryland and later Texas. It was a mother "detox" center. My father had already purchased my ticket and had expected to transport me right away, as soon as he got the court's permission. He wanted to send me away from my mom, my sister and my brother, my step-dad and all my friends, without even a chance to say goodbye. I felt so betrayed by him that it was like he ripped my heart out and put it in a blender. Somehow I found the strength to say "No more." Even so, I was very scared, and refused to get in a car with my father because I thought he might try to send me to Maryland.
24. Did my father call the police on me?
Yes. When he said that I wouldn't see my mom again I lost it. I was so emotionally shaken that I broke dishes and I broke the door in so he couldn't come after me. He called the cops on me.
25. Did the police take me away in handcuffs?
Yes. They arrested me in handcuffs on a 5150 or suicide watch. I have never felt suicidal in my entire life.
26. Did the police take me to a mental hospital at my father's request?
Yes. I was taken to the hospital in Martinez, CA to the Psychiatric Ward. My father works in the same hospital. When I arrived, my father and Rachel Foundation people were already there. My father told them I was "psychotic" and pleaded with them to admit me into the psychiatric ward.
27. Did the hospital say I wasn't crazy, just mad, and let me go?
Yes. They couldn't understand why I was there. They told me so. I was next to drug addicts and schizophrenics, some of whom had committed crimes. In fact, some of the hospital staff were upset that my father would want me there, especially when he demanded that I be admitted.
28. When I finally got back to my father's house, did he lock me out in the rain?
Yes. After I was in the psyche ward my dad signed me in for voluntary foster care again. From there, I ran away from the voluntary foster care back to his house. I was going to give in and live with him because I was broken and couldn't fight anymore. I walked in the rain ten blocks uphill to his house and when I got there he wouldn't let me in. I stood outside for 2 hours in the rain and wind crying because I had nowhere else to go (because he refused to let me go to my mom's house). He called the cops on me again and they came and put me under house arrest because my dad said he feared for his family's safety around me. The next morning, I packed my bags and took the train to Davis where I hid with friends. My mom didn't know where I was becaue I didn't want her to be arrested for kidnapping.
29. Would a loving, protective, father lock his daughter out in the rain at night?
No. It's disgusting. He intentionally left me and watched me from his windows.
30. Did the judge put my father on therapeutic supervised visits?
Yes. We had counseling together.
31. Did my father come regularly to the supervised visits?
No. I tried to schedule visits for every 3rd week, even though I didn't really want to even see him. I thought... let's at least give it a try. He would frequently cancel; one time he canceled 3 months in a row. He only made it consistently on the weeks prior to court appearances. I've always said my Dad is more a lawyer than father.
32. What do I want from my father?
I want to be allowed to enjoy the last 1 1/2 years of my childhood before I go off to college and the real world. I want to enjoy life as a young adult. I want to worry about school, and shopping, and college and movies,and boys....not about court and my father harassing my mom. I want him to stop sending me to court. I want him to help support me financially without complaining about it. I want money for college. I want what all daughters want from a dad. I know I can't expect real love and respect from him, but at least he can fulfill his basic responsibilities required with my conception. He wants to ruin me. It's sad but true. All I want is to be out of court. My name is Fatima Alilre Loeliger and I am 16 years old. I think that is the least he owes me.
Posted on November 16, 2005 at 04:57 PM | Permalink
Comments
Man BABE. It's so amusing to watch you grasp onto this new pet peeve you've got going here. I suppose the courts, the judges, the transcripts ALL have it wrong and you're right. Whew...it must be a magical moment for you.
Even PBS has conceeded that an internal review has to be conducted and should be concluded within 30 days.
I know you never visit my site (much like Superman avoids kryptonite) but you may want to make an exception as, this morning I posted an article by Glenn that directly challenges you. Interesting reading! Come on over and don't worry...I don't bite...unless you ask me too.
Posted by: Masculiste at Nov 16, 2005 6:39:45 PM
DAYUM they are just everywhere lately, aren't they?
I thought gnats were dead once the frost hit.
Posted by: Moi ;) at Nov 16, 2005 8:45:36 PM
No frost here, yet, Moi, not counting that freak snowstorm a couple of weeks ago. We gottem gnats. ;)
I read Sacks' newsletter denouncing my "Breaking The Silence" web site this morning. He's spinning so much he's burning rubber. As I had expected, he doesn't address a thing Fatima has written and said. NONE of these fathers' rights activists are paying any attention to what Fatima Loeliger has written and said, including her own response to the web page Sacks put up about her, her mother, and the documentary. Abused children truly have no voice, as far as fathers' rights activists are concerned. They are ignoring that Fatima's mother has had custody of her since 2003, that she wants to continue living with her mother, and that she wants to spend the rest of her high school years living like a normal teenager. She wants the custody fight to stop. Fathers' rights activists are ignoring what she's repeatedly said in favor of bashing her, her mother, and the documentary. I'm not surprised.
Posted by: The Countess at Nov 16, 2005 8:55:43 PM
Moi, you must be referring to the gnats your friggin' poodle and cat bring home. Try calamine for the bites.
Posted by: Masculiste at Nov 16, 2005 8:59:52 PM
"I know you never visit my site (much like Superman avoids kryptonite) but you may want to make an exception as, this morning I posted an article by Glenn that directly challenges you. Interesting reading!"
Don't waste your time with this site Trish.
It's nothing but a 'hate fest' against women...
He posts one horrible abuse or murder story every five minutes, all involving mothers as perps...when he runs out of stories in the US, he starts trolling other countries newspages to find more.
I (who he claims hates men) have never even posted stories like this about men one after another on my site, the way he does.
There are very few feminist or men's rights sites I won't go to (at least to lurk)..but Masculiste's is one of them that I don't even bother with...as it's nothing but a waste of time and a hate fest against women, especially mothers.
Posted by: NYMOM at Nov 16, 2005 9:13:41 PM
I think it's time that her and her mother started investigating legal action against the individuals and groups who continue posting these stories after she's spoken out TWICE already...
First time, you could say they didn't know; second time, it's apparent they have an agenda.
Her and her mother should check out that attorney Richard Ducote. He was the one who represented Alana Krause in a similar situation and guess what: that whole thing was over, the stories ended before most of the public knew what had happened...
Today to find out anything about that case, you have to dig very deep...
That Ducote good...
Posted by: NYMOM at Nov 16, 2005 9:22:51 PM
That PBS in caving into an "internal review" says less about the merits of the FR case, than about the politics afoot under the increasingly conservative pro-Administration people running PBS these days. PBS has become increasingly more timid over the years, and is deeply afraid of treading on the toes of powerful right-wing interests. Despite their docility, the right wing is still trying to kill them off for good, as a symbol of "liberalism." See the latest article in Vanity Fair on the history of attacks against PBS, starting with Tricky Dick.
Posted by: silverside at Nov 16, 2005 9:35:54 PM
"He posts one horrible abuse or murder story every five minutes, all involving mothers as perps...when he runs out of stories in the US, he starts trolling other countries newspages to find more..."
Well gee, I suppose if the news stories of such events are coming in every five minutes and from all around the world...then it's not an anomoly is it?
And if you never visit my site, how do you know what I post? What a barn animal you are.
Posted by: Masculiste at Nov 16, 2005 9:39:33 PM
How very sad. It hurts my heart to hear a story like this. There is really no excuse for this kind of abuse of a system designed to protect children. I understand that many men see their wives and children as property. I blame the patriarchy. But, to have the very people we depend on to protect against this kind of abuse of power is an outrage. Every time I begin to think we have come too far for children to be used and abused as I was as a child I see something like this and am reminded it is indeed all about power and the abuse of power. How very sad.
Posted by: rose at Nov 16, 2005 10:40:40 PM
"What a barn animal you are."
AND what a jack@@ you are...
Posted by: NYMOM at Nov 16, 2005 10:44:14 PM
Of course there are some violent crimes committed by women. However, depending on whose statistics you read, men commit between 80% and 90% of all violent crimes. The reason you see people like him posting stories about violent crimes committed by women is because it's unusual; it's NEWS. We couldn't possibly post about all of the male-perpetrated violent crimes... and who wants to?
Posted by: J.J. at Nov 16, 2005 11:38:08 PM
Well I don't care if they post it as a curiousity just to read, ala the National Enquirer.
HOWEVER they use these stories to try to 'juice' up other men and organizations to harrass people in power so they'll make public policy changes. That's the problem.
Even with this documentary that we are discussing right here, 1,500 mens' rights advocates (and female enabler idiots who support them) 'swarmed' PBS with emails and telephone calls to try and stop it being shown...
MANY of them being primed for just such an event for months by sites bombarding them with stories about women abusing children and getting away with it, women just having children to get child support, women 'raping' teenage boys and so on and so forth.
It's an attempt to smear women thorough these stories and then rally people to get public policy changes and laws passed based upon these smear campaigns...
AND sometimes it works...that's the problem.
It's really a hate campaign against women, particular mothers, PARTICULARLY single mothers, who due to these phony statistics and exaggerated stories they've put up have been demonized and painted as being responsible for everything bad that happens in this civilization from urban riots to hang nails.
AND it needs to be stopped.
Posted by: NYMOM at Nov 17, 2005 9:37:50 AM
You're right Trish--it's quite telling that none of these guys have addressed Fatima's statements that contest the FR spin machine. Then again, why listen to what the kid herself has to say?
It really is about abuser's rights--not about the kids. Sad. Unsurprising, but still sad.
Posted by: Sheelzebub at Nov 17, 2005 11:13:14 AM
Trish, while you focus on the statements of a child even now later on in life, why is it that all of this was not brought out when the convictions were? IF in fact you yourself were not promoting a gender based war, adn legitimately gave a damn about the children, you would sensibly realize that BOTH parties are subject to the same scenarios.
Your Interest in all of this is purely egotistical. It is a high profile case that draws viewers your way. You yourself are equally as guilty of doing what you claim the "fathers rights" groups are doing.
There is no magic law that says 85% of all parents are abusers of unfit parents, nor is there any data to support such a claim. Where teh claim comes from is pretty simple, and pretty obvious if you do some legitimate national research using readily available information. IT is easy to make things appear in your favor when you used biased research material. There are however many statistics readily available to PROVE that this ideology you promote does in fact already exist, and has for well over 30 years.
If you gave a damn about the kids, you would strip the personal attacks between parties, between genders and focus on the real issue, which is simply put the dirty judges who make these ruling which go BOTH WAYS, the SCUMBAG Attornies who promote, build and profit from such cases, and those sleazy social workers who begin laying eyes upon your children the minute they are born.
Most of the language in this "statement" is beyond that of an ex with an agenda, not that of a victimized child as portrayed, however its your story and you are free to tell it however you like, Court Judgements seem to contradict you, Mom, and even the trumped up statement.
Maybe it did happen, or maybe it didn't... There are only two people who really know, but a movie based on allegations when court records PROVE otherwise is nto a wise step for any public funded broadcast network.
You want some "Junk Science" to attack, attack national statistics that say the arguments used to promote this agenda and the idea that Courts are awarding custody to abusers are false. When you can prove that courts are awarding more than 15% of custody cases to fathers at the national level, and then prove that 100% of them fathers are abusers, you will have accomplished something, until then you are only blowing your own horn, and really fooling NOBODY.
Posted by: Skeptic at Nov 17, 2005 1:51:29 PM
There is no magic law that says 85% of all parents are abusers of unfit parents, nor is there any data to support such a claim.
No kidding. She never said that, but it's so charming to see yet another FR shill twist Trish's words. Professionals in the field do contend that PAS has been used to help abusers gain custody. You all have yet to address that.
Where teh claim comes from is pretty simple, and pretty obvious if you do some legitimate national research using readily available information.
Were you FR folks to take your own advice. . .
IT is easy to make things appear in your favor when you used biased research material.
Yeah, because FR shills out there aren't using biased research materials at all, like the IWF. Nor are they twisting people's words, as they did in the case of the APA and PAS.
Posted by: Sheelzebub at Nov 17, 2005 2:36:47 PM
"No kidding. She never said that, but it's so charming to see yet another FR shill twist Trish's words."
No Sheezebub, J.J. asserted that. Try reading before you start insulting. Honestly...do I have to be the only one here who has to show a little decorum in a debate?
Let's just backtrack for a sec...
In a letter to viewers acknowledging the furor ( father's righsters...no argument about that) the PBS acknowledge by their own research that the occurance of this problem, while relatively small, was worth doing a program about.
Again, I repeat...by their own research that the occurance of this problem, while RELATIVELY SMALL, was worth doing a program about.
No one, not one father's righster, has EVER denied that a certain small number of children are, in fact, given in custody to abusive fathers who use PAS as a convenient weapon. Although it is a small number, it is always a bad thing to award physical custody to ANY physically abusive parent.
However, in this case, the PBS backed the wrong horse. Because numerous juvenille court records, psycholical evaluations, judge's reports and recommendations, other victim's transcripts, Fatima's cousin's (who was also a victim) transcripts, as well as Fatima's statements herself to a CYS evaluator and that evaluators investigative documented conclusions, and finally the mothers own numerous admittions herself, ALL point to the mother as being the one who in fact committed the physical abuse. THAT was how she lost custody to begin with. These are things you all are ignoring.
It's interesting that, with this small anomoly that you are all getting on the bandwagon behind for a woman who actually WAS an abusor...instead of wondering why the PBS would take this woman's story with nary an effort to fully research that her version was accurate so as not to compromise the integrity of the message of the show...when certainly there must have been other women who've suffered this same problem that would have been much more representative of the problem itself. Could it be that there really wasn't that big a pool of women who've suffered this problem?
Now that said, in reference to the stories I post, while THIS relatively small problem has you all up-in-arms, the stories I post, you guys consider sensationalism, super market tabloid stuff, a relatively small problem that isn't worthy whatsoever of acknowledgement.
Who's REALLY ignoring the abused? Who's CLEARLY displaying a double standard? Who's being outright hypocritical?
A government funded network who's pledge and committment is supposed to be about fair and balanced reporting (you should be just as pissed as we are at PBS for picking the wrong subject to convey a story with valid concerns) backs the wrong horse and brings the whole issue under negative scrutiny...and you barely bat an eye. It's all fathers rightster's faults.
On the other hand the news reports that a teenage babysitter holds a 12 year-old boy down so that he can be raped (penetrated mind you) by a pitbull, the girl gets 2 years probation, and I don't hear a peep. You've all seen the stories I posted for yesterday yet you're all playing strangely silent.
Was it ME who wrote this in a novellette? Did I make this up? No, the news reported it. Like it reports these same types of stories day-in and day-out. But to this group, THAT'S sensationalism that shouldn't even be reported much less acknowledged.
When will you admit it? Women can and do abuse. They commit more acts of domestic violence than men by US Dept. of Justice statistics. And that doesn't account for the times that AREN'T reported. By that same statistical source, women commit more acts of child abuse than men, and that does not include abortion or women who are charged with drug use while carrying a baby. Even though this country has created laws that give moms the option to turn their babies into a police or firestation without fear of reprisal, we're still constantly finding newborn corpses in dumpsters and backyard trash cans.
I don't post these stories because I hate women. It's not even ABOUT that. It's the side that YOU all don't want to see. If you acknowledged and condemned willful ignorance of this sort of thing, I wouldn't have anything to post. I wouldn't need to remind people of what we already acknowledge.
When I first posted this PBS fiasco from Glenn Sack's site (we had a very pleasant conversation this morning...he says HI to you all) it struck me. Glenn links to Trish, he links to Fatima's televised statements AND documented statements as well as her mothers, from Trish's website and from here. So neither Glenn, nor I, nor anyone that I'm aware of is ignoring Fatima's message. Not ANY of them. And THAT'S balanced coverage.
Posted by: Masculiste at Nov 17, 2005 6:05:24 PM
Fleas? @@
Couldn't think of anything else to say? LOL
Posted by: Moi ;) at Nov 17, 2005 8:54:00 PM
That's funny Moi. How could I have not noticed that you carry a lot of info. on autism. My son is within the Kanner's spectrum of autism. I'm going to have to link up to your place and get some much needed information.
Posted by: Masculiste at Nov 17, 2005 10:45:57 PM
"On the other hand the news reports that a teenage babysitter holds a 12 year-old boy down so that he can be raped (penetrated mind you) by a pitbull, the girl gets 2 years probation, and I don't hear a peep. You've all seen the stories I posted for yesterday yet you're all playing strangely silent."
Can you imagine posting a story like this and expecting women to take them seriously?
Like if the number of abusive fathers who get custody is small, how small is the number of teenage babysitters who force their charges to have sex with animals.
Last week they were posting stories about lesbians who rape children...like how large is that universe...
His entire site is a hate fest against women...
Posting that story and wondering why we are silent about it is a perfect example of what I'm talking about...
Posted by: NYMOM at Nov 18, 2005 5:21:35 AM
Many people are driven to get involved with campaigns against womens' issues (like against VAWA and this documentary on PBS) by the stories posted on these hate-filled sites.
What they do is comb the news and pull out ALL horrible abuse and murder stories with women as perps, when they can't find enough to meet their quota in the US news, they will go abroad trolling other coutnry's news in an attempt to find more stories.
I don't consider any of the people who run these sites to be funny, amusing, friendly or cute in anyway.
They are hate-mongers and responsible for much of the venom against women that exists in the media today.
Even when you go on their sites, for instance, you will find stories about Natalie Holloway trying to blame her mother for not 'raising her properly' as the reason for her death...
This is the type of venom they sprew forth against women.
Posted by: NYMOM at Nov 18, 2005 5:31:46 AM
Blaming women who pick 'bad men' is kind of a red herring.
Yes, women should make better choices but it's awful hard to do that today when there exists such a large universe of devious sneaky dirtbags who do so much to cover up their true selves.
Like Sadia Loeliger's husband. He traveled all the way to Africa to pick out a young girl (she was 18 years old) and convinced her parents he was interested in marrying her. He forgot to mention to them that he was already married, thus, he sneaked Sadia in here on a student visa.
We have seen on this site that this is about the third or fourth case of this nature; where an American man has gone abroad to seek a young wife and try to pull these sorts of shenigans on them. We had the one who brought a girl from Russia (then claimed she was a former prostitute) and moved her kids thousands of miles away from her; then we had the girl from Ireland (who married an American enlisted man had a child, lost custody and was prompted deported).
Actually Fatima's case appears to have ended a LOT better then those other kids who God only knows if and when they'll see their mothers again.
So that's one issue. Sneaky dirtbags going to places where they aren't known and picking a girl from there.
Then there is the issue of thousands of years of social conditioning that pursuades women to marry men like this to 'change' them, make them better people. This helped societies in the past by ensuring that these dangerous men were safely made part of a couple, thus sticking the wife with the responsibility for him...and it was lifelong then...no easy out of divorce.
I saw many women in the Irish-Catholic community I grew up in stuck with some alcoholic loser and forced to stay with him through a combination of church/community/family pressure not to divorce.
So it's not quite as easy as you think to identify these losers early on...and there a whole lot of them as well...
You know how the Marines say, just a few good men...they're right.
Posted by: NYMOM at Nov 18, 2005 9:18:03 AM
Actually, I saw someplace on the net this morning (need to find where) that abusers buy flowers more frequently than non-abusers. It's one of those techniques look outwardly "sweet" but ultimately just confuse the victims ("Gee, how nice. Maybe he was just having a bad day. He didn't mean to punch me.") Unless people are educated on how abusers operate, ti will be hard for young women to know what's going on.
Posted by: silverside at Nov 18, 2005 9:45:56 AM
"Actually, I saw someplace on the net this morning (need to find where) that abusers buy flowers more frequently than non-abusers."
Oh I saw that too growing up...the jerk who spent his whole paycheck out drinking from Friday to Saturday night, then shows up Sunday morning spending the last few dollars on a bunch of ragged flowers for his wife...
Many a wife winded up braining him with a frying pan...but I don't consider that domestic violence but righteous justice, as frequently it meant their kids went hungry and she had to run around begging neighbors, family or even the church for rent money.
So that flowers thing is ooooold for abusive men to use.
Posted by: NYMOM at Nov 18, 2005 10:35:32 AM
Masculiste wrote:
Honestly...do I have to be the only one here who has to show a little decorum in a debate?
and
Who's CLEARLY displaying a double standard? Who's being outright hypocritical?
and (while addressing NYMOM)
What a barn animal you are.
The answer to the question of hypocrisy is clearly Masculiste!
Posted by: at Nov 18, 2005 11:48:31 AM
oops, forgot to sign in -- the comment regarding responsibility for hypocrisy was from me
Posted by: lee at Nov 18, 2005 11:49:57 AM
"No one, not one father's righster, has EVER denied that a certain small number of children are, in fact, given in custody to abusive fathers who use PAS as a convenient weapon. Although it is a small number, it is always a bad thing to award physical custody to ANY physically abusive parent."
Well, I've been following the FR movement for 10 years, and I've NEVER seen this admission before. Even criminal convictions don't prevent the FR folks from taking up somebody's cause. On the flip side, my impression has been that mother advocates are very reluctant to take up any body's cause unless she has a good record. You won't find me advocating that schizophrenic or abusive moms should have custody. Unfortunately, in a lot of these cases (like the SF woman the FR guys keep harping about), there doesn't seem to be any dad about. Or like a Buffalo schizo mom who killed her baby last year. Dad was also schizo, and had abandoned the family before the killing. If I had my druthers, neither one would have had the kid.
Or how about the example in today's NYT (NYMOM might have seen this). Sole custodial father murdered his daughter. She had been taken from mom because of cocaine being present in her blood from birth. Not a good thing. I would never argue that a woman like that should have custody, no questions asked. (As a matter of fact, she was eliminated from the picture and now lives out of state). But I would sure question why a guy with dad's history of violence should get her either. Normally, I see a real reluctance on the part of FR people to say, "No. That guy does not deserve custody of a child." Honestly, this is the first time I have ever seen it.
Posted by: silverside at Nov 18, 2005 11:50:56 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/nyregion/18girl.html
The link for the aforementioned case if anyone is interested: 7-year-old girl brutally beaten to death by abusive father with sole custody.
If you're the praying kind, say a few words for poor Sierra Roberts and her short and miserable life. May the Lord give you peace, Sierra.
Posted by: silverside at Nov 18, 2005 11:58:33 AM
By the way, if the FR folks mean what they say, they will publicly condemn NYC social services for giving custody to this kind of a ^%*,especially when there apparently was a loving foster family. (starting timer, foot tapping, checking watch, fidgeting, hair growing grayer...)
Posted by: silverside at Nov 18, 2005 12:02:30 PM
"On the flip side, my impression has been that mother advocates are very reluctant to take up any body's cause unless she has a good record. You won't find me advocating that schizophrenic or abusive moms should have custody. Unfortunately, in a lot of these cases (like the SF woman the FR guys keep harping about), there doesn't seem to be any dad about. Or like a Buffalo schizo mom who killed her baby last year. Dad was also schizo, and had abandoned the family before the killing. If I had my druthers, neither one would have had the kid."
Sadly this is the situation with MANY of these kids...both father and mother are screwups...which is why we can't judge parents too much from these stories. We have to remember that MOST of us are just ordinary parents, who are just divorcing/separating and problems exist, but neither one is a murderer.
As then what happens is like what's going on in the UK and here to a certain extent now to...where a father or even a mother who has done NOTHING wrong has to be treated like a criminal just because they happen to be the unlucky one who got tagged as 'non-custodial'...
And as you yourself know frequently becoming non-custodial is just the luck of the draw: who filed first, who the Evaluator was (more profather vs. promother). Sometimes it even comes down to whether or not one smokes cigarettes or something petty like that. Since most people fall in the average range of parenting, a Judge can wind up deciding based on very minor differences in parents which one will be non-custodial.
So I don't want to judge every parent by the ones who hit the front pages...
This is a sad case through, I hadn't read it yet but like you, I agree she should have been allowed to be adopted.
Too bad...although many drug addicted parents refuse to give their children up for adoptions. You would be surprised how many parents will leave their kids in foster care FOREVER even if they can't handle them...they won't give them a chance at a life with someone else.
I lived through that. I think I told you...from 5 years old in a school/orphanage run by nuns (with most of my brothers and sisters in their with me, 8 of us). My mother was NOT able to get me out until I was 14 years old and she took two of my brothers...and the rest of my siblings she NEVER got out...they just aged out of the system before she could handle a family again...
So that kid probably didn't stand a chance, sadly enough.
Posted by: NYMOM at Nov 18, 2005 12:28:53 PM
"By the way, if the FR folks mean what they say, they will publicly condemn NYC social services for giving custody to this kind of a ^%*,especially when there apparently was a loving foster family. (starting timer, foot tapping, checking watch, fidgeting, hair growing grayer...)"
Yeah...she might have even been better off in one of those schools with nuns like I was in...
I don't even think they have them anymore.
However those nuns would beat you too if you acted out or got bad grades, didn't do your chores, etc., but they stopped just short of killing you...
Seriously those nuns were pretty strict too...
I often told my daughters growing up that they would NEVER have survived my childhood especially with the smart mouth on both of them...
Posted by: NYMOM at Nov 18, 2005 12:34:07 PM
Also today, a Denver 6-year-old girl apparently murdered by custodial father. Mother, who lives in Detroit, hadn't seen the girl since father and his girlfriend ran off together with her children back in 2001.
http://www.9news.com/
Light another candle. This one for Aarone Thompson.
Meanwhile, back in Orange County, NY, Christopher Rhodes is still trying to argue that the blood all over his clothing was from one of his daughter's "frequent" nose bleeds. Ridiculous, the forensic people say. (Christopher Rhodes, another custodial father, is currently on trial for murdering his seven-year-old daughter back in the early part of the year. The mother, who has reported domestic violence, had also been banned from seeing the girl for years. And still the abuse continues. So far the mother has not been allowed to testify at trial and challenge the defense's line on what a great dad Chistopher is/was. Still silenced, even after her child lays in a grave with 16 stab wounds...]
Posted by: silverside at Nov 18, 2005 2:30:22 PM
"...So far the mother has not been allowed to testify at trial and challenge the defense's line on what a great dad Chistopher is/was. Still silenced, even after her child lays in a grave with 16 stab wounds..."
Probably she'll only be allowed to testify during the penalty phrase of the trial. In other words, he'll get a longer sentence probably when the Judge hears how he and his parents deliberately kept her away from her mother, then murdered her.
It was all so avoidable...
How come the grandparents weren't charged with something as accessories???? If it was a mother they would have charged her...even if she wasn't there when the murder took place.
But they'd have to drag me out of that trial everyday because I'd be yelling out telling his attorney he was full of it everytime he said it...
Posted by: NYMOM at Nov 18, 2005 3:26:45 PM
Lee said-"The answer to the question of hypocrisy is clearly Masculiste!"
Please read the whole thread before youy make a comment about me.
And while you're all conveniently derailing the post and the comments to make your points, remember that no man or father's rightster is excusing the heinous acts committed by these men you're citing. No one is denying that these are horrific crimes and that these pieces of human waste should be put to sleep.
Posted by: Masculiste at Nov 18, 2005 4:20:09 PM
Wrong, Masculiste. Fatima's been adamant about the fact that she doesn't want to live with her father, and that he was abusive. Oddly enough, what she describes, and what Alanna Krause described in her lawsuit, fit with the PAS the FR folks love to rail against. Yet not one peep was uttered about the attempts to alienate those kids (to the point of throwing Krause in an institution and calling her mentally ill for refusing to trash her mother).
I have yet to see *any* of you guys go after a male abuser. Just a bunch of gosh, of course we would go after someone like that. But FR folks don't--they trash teenagers who publicly speak out about their abuse as liars. Go on, go to Courageous Kids and see some of the vitriol posted about those kids from so-called Father's Rights activists. No decent father I know--even the ones who have nightmare ex-wives--will have anything to do with you lot precisely because of crap like that.
Posted by: Sheelzebub at Nov 18, 2005 4:36:07 PM
Glad to hear it.
However, my point is not that mothers and fathers don't kill. Empirically we know that both do, though generally out of different contexts.
It is to lay to rest once and for all the FR myth that fathers only kill when their authority or masculinity is "challenged" or "usurped" by the "little woman" or the courts.
These three cases show fathers who had the full control-freak/ abuser wet dream: full custody with mom pushed entirely out of the picture and with no say, whether due to intimidation or other issues. And it still wasn't enough. So little 6- and 7-year-old girls (the age when children, girls especially, start to push the boundaries of their own authority and autonomy) were killed as a result.
That's one reason why the abusers need to be examined very carefully when they make custody bids. Appeasing them with custody or visitation is not going to necessarily make things better. It might end up with someone's death.
Posted by: silverside at Nov 18, 2005 4:39:52 PM
"It is to lay to rest once and for all the FR myth that fathers only kill when their authority or masculinity is "challenged" or "usurped" by the "little woman" or the courts."
Heck I didn't know they WERE saying that, the idiots...
I really stopped listening to most of their crap a while ago, so I didn't realize they've were trying to blame MOTHERS for when fathers murder their own kids...
Geez...does it ever end with them.
Posted by: NYMOM at Nov 18, 2005 4:59:36 PM
You know...you people aren't even reading the photo-copied documents but you continue to debate this even after the cat is TOTALLY out of the bag, and these sensitive documents are available for public scrutiny. ALL of them. If you want, I can give you the links to the actual transcripts from ALL communications between CYS, Juvenille Court, etc. etc.
But the sad part is...you'll continue to ignore them. You won't even look at them. THAT is what bias and propaganda is...when balance, objectivety and a willingness to look at both sides before formulating a theory or opinion is completely thrown out the window in favor of ramming your one-sided views down everyone's throat.
But you know what? For shits-n-giggles, I'm going to link you to just a few...
Judge's order...
http://www.glennsacks.com/pbs/loeliger-judge-king.pdf
Social Service recommendation...
http://www.glennsacks.com/pbs/loeliger-juvenile-case.pdf
Juvenille court...
http://www.glennsacks.com/pbs/loeliger-juvenile-case-2.pdf
Superior court...
http://www.glennsacks.com/pbs/loeliger-fatima-placement.pdf
Sadia's domestic violence charge...
http://www.glennsacks.com/pbs/loeliger-dv.pdf
Pscychological Evaluation...
http://www.glennsacks.com/pbs/loeliger-quinn.pdf
Judge Phillips order...
http://www.glennsacks.com/pbs/loeliger-judge-phillips.pdf
I could go on and on...but then that would be redundent wouldn't it?
Posted by: Masculiste at Nov 18, 2005 5:44:55 PM
Those are just statements asserting something without proof.
Just like Fatima's letters.
Posted by: soriass at Nov 18, 2005 11:49:26 PM
PLUS Fatima, herself, said that the professionals involved with the case were biased for her FATHER, thus making me think that you didn't read her letter. She even mentioned vacationing with some of the court officials involved...
It was the same thing with Alana Krause. Her father's girlfriend was actually the psychologist who wrote up the report which landed Alana in that dangerous juvenile facility where she got beat up...she could have been seriously injured or even killed in that place, raped, anything could have happened to her.
Why was she put there, to stop her from living with her mother, bottom line.
So should we bother reviewing that girlfriend's report for any insight into Alana.
Somehow I don't think so...
Both her and this Fatima Loeliger seems to have reached some critical milestone at about 11/12 years old or so, where people started listening to them as individuals and this is what seemed to set these events into motion.
Frankly in spite of all the psychological hoopla about abusive men being spun about here, I'll give you one thing, I don't think these men were particularly abusive. You know what I think they were: greedy. As I think BOTH of these cases were about a lawyer and a doctor wanting to avoid paying high child support.
As they would have been hit with a tremendous amount if they had become non-custodial...
Thus we must fix child support in order to avoid these situations in the future, as that is what much of this nonsense is about.
Just my opinion.
Of course everyone else will disagree.
But that's the heart and soul of these situations. NOTHING more complicated. WE make it more complicated by attributing more and darker motivations to these men, when it's all pretty simple...
Posted by: NYMOM at Nov 19, 2005 6:23:36 AM
You sound like a little brat. You admit to three differant CRIMES, running away twice and willfull destruction of private property, and you blame your dad for putting you in foster care! You should have been put in a detention facility instead. Your father also had a right to be upset when the district attorney sent you to your mom since your father had custody of you. Finally, Yes a loving father does lock his daughter out of the house in the rain. He does it when he fears that his dish throwing, door braking daughter might endamger her other siblings. It sounds to me llike your father is better off letting you live with your mother since you insist on acting like a monster to him and your siblings because they also must live with your bad behaviour.
Posted by: Jolene at Nov 23, 2005 10:32:25 AM
This was truly a sad story and my sympathies are with Fatima. She was the victim of abuse and neglect by both parents in my opinion. Both parents should be ashamed of how they behaved and it appears that they tried to alienate one another every chance that had. They were BOTH selfish in that they only wanted to hurt the other parent without realizing the effects that this may have on the child. It's a truly sad thing when a child is encouraged to hate any parent and very saddening when the child finally gives in to the hate. I pray that Fatima finds it in her heart to forgive her parents one day and that she accepts her dad back into her life. I am sure that both parents truly love their child regardless of the mistakes that they have made and the pain that they caused.
While I'm sure that the arguement between Father's rights groups and Feminists will continue for some time to come, I wanted to share this portion of an article written by one of your more fair minded feminists:
"It looks to me like the PBS documentary has taken a very complicated and messy situation in which both parents are at fault (though the mother is the only one with a fairly clear record of physical violence), and transformed it into a melodrama about a villainous father and a wronged mother," she said. "And this melodrama is put into the service of a narrative that vilifies fathers, most explosively suggesting that the majority of fathers who seek custody of their children are abusers. And that's just wrong."
I believe the producers of "Breaking the Silence" made an egregious error in casting a physically abusive mother as a wronged heroine.
"Breaking the Silence" may well contribute to misinformation on domestic violence and its impact upon children. And that is shameful.
Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com and a research fellow for The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of many books and articles, including the new book, "Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century" (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives with her husband in Canada.
She hit the nail right on the head!
I challenge you who are continually blindly bashing father's and father's rights groups to please understand the issues before passing judgement down on father's.
As a dad that had to fight against lies and false accusation's, I do sympathise with a good loving father's plight in the family courts.
Believe it or not but most father's are good one's that love their kids and want nothing more than to be the best parent that they can be. They want equal rights, equal time, and equal involvement in their child's life. Why is that such a bad thing?? I will never understand why feminists persist in trying to stop this from happening. Kids need their dad's just as much as they need their mom's. If you don't agree with this then I am sad for your children.
PBS documentaries that portray father's (or mother's) in a negative streotype should not be allowed to air. Don't let a few bad apples ruin the whole bunch.
Posted by: TS at Nov 23, 2005 10:45:06 AM
Yes, what a brat. She should be grateful to be called evil and worthless by her father and stepmother and thank God for the wonderful opportunity she had to see their physical fights. Of course a loving father locks his child out of the house. What a paragon of fatherly virtue.
Posted by: Sheelzebub at Nov 23, 2005 11:07:14 AM
Well one piece of good news. Christopher Rhodes was found guilty on all charges in the murder of Jerica Rhodes. This is one abusive custodial father who will do no more harm.
http://www.recordonline.com/index.html
Posted by: silverside at Nov 23, 2005 11:28:15 AM
Silverside, do you have a better link? The Rhodes story has moved off the first page.
Posted by: The Countess at Nov 23, 2005 11:36:17 AM
Y'all can complain about the documentary as much as you like. An internal memo from PBS that was leaked to fathers' rights activists shows that PBS stands behind the documentary. That memo instructed PBS employees regarding how to deal with the endless antagonism coming from letters, e-mails, and phone calls from angry fathers' rights activists. Good for PBS. The documentary is also being shown to legislators and others who deal with children, mothers, and contested custody cases, especially those that involve abuse. I know that the documentary is scheduled for special showings in 2006. I am glad to hear it. The documentary brings up an important issue that has been ignored for too long - abused children who are given over to the custody of their abusive fathers.
Posted by: The Countess at Nov 23, 2005 11:39:31 AM
Countess,
People will say and do almost anything to win a custody case. When father's are accused of abuse in family court, many times than not, the accusations are false and are lies told as a means to win the case.
Those father's that are falsely accused win custody because the courts investigation and custody evalutation's deem the father the better parent, also a parent that will not lie and alienate the other just as a means to win.
Courts are just beginning to see what is going on. Good loving father's are finally being given a fair chance in family courts and feminists with their blind hatred are enraged.
Why do feminists streotype men and father's and mostly abusive uncapable parents?
Posted by: ts at Nov 23, 2005 11:59:47 AM
http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2005/11/23/verdict0.htm
I'll post the article here, because you have to register to get access. If you decide to shorten or remove, that's ok.
November 23, 2005
Justice for Jerica
Rhodes guilty on all counts
By Oliver Mackson
Times Herald-Record
omackson@th-record.com
Goshen – People will ask "why?" for years when they talk about the murder of 7-year-old Jerica Rhodes, but a jury yesterday left no doubt about the "who:" The killer was Christopher Rhodes, who called himself Jerica's father.
Rhodes, 28, of Highland Falls, was convicted of murder and seven lesser felonies yesterday in Orange County Court. The jury delivered its verdict at 2 p.m., after about eight hours of deliberations over two days. The verdict could send him to prison for 29 years to life.
Rhodes showed no emotion at the verdict, heeding a warning from his lawyer that the judge would not tolerate any outbursts. His parents and his younger brother were a daily presence during the trial, but they weren't in the courtroom for the verdict. When they got the news from Rhodes' lawyer, Sol Lesser, outside the courthouse, Rhodes family members quickly got into their cars and departed.
The verdict arrived nearly 10 months to the day after Jerica's body was found on the morning of Jan. 27, in a boys bathroom at Sacred Heart of Jesus School in Highland Falls. Jerica, a first-grader, had been stabbed 16 times, an act of violence that thrust the little village into the national spotlight.
From the start of the three-week trial, prosecutors told the jury that they might never know why Jerica was murdered. Rhodes insisted he didn't kill her, and he even took the unusual step of taking the stand in his own defense to proclaim his innocence.
The jury didn't buy it.
"There was no motive when we began. There was no motive today. But at least today we have accountability, and that's more important," said Assistant District Attorney David Byrne, the lead prosecutor.
District Attorney Frank Phillips praised Byrne, who was prosecuting his first murder case, and John Geidel, a senior assistant district attorney who teamed up with Byrne and presented the prosecution's forensic evidence, including tests that showed Jerica's DNA was on the leather jacket that Rhodes was wearing on the day of the murder.
"As district attorney, I'm certainly gratified that the Orange County Court jury in this case returned a guilty verdict," Phillips said. "Certainly, the way in which we greet that is tempered by the fact that a 7-year-old child was viciously murdered by her presumed father at the time."
A few weeks after Jerica was killed, DNA tests showed that her father wasn't Christopher Rhodes.
Rhodes' lawyer argued that police settled too quickly on Rhodes as a suspect, mishandled evidence and conducted a "half-baked" investigation.
"I thought we had put in enough evidence and raised enough issues that there was substantial, reasonable doubt," Lesser said, somber-faced after the verdict.
In addition to murder and possession of a weapon, Rhodes was convicted of six felonies for concocting bogus letters that purported to be "confessions" to Jerica's killing by another inmate at Orange County Jail. Rhodes told the jury that he cooked up the letters out of desperation to get out of jail for a crime he didn't commit.
The phony letters backfired. Byrne pointed out to the jury that they contained details that only the killer could know, such as Jerica's muffled screams of "Daddy, Daddy" as she was stabbed.
The weapon was never found, which was another detail contained in the fake letters.
When Rhodes is sentenced on Jan. 4, prosecutors will ask Judge Jeffrey G. Berry to treat the murder and the bogus letters as separate crimes and impose consecutive sentences. That would expose Rhodes to a maximum sentence of 29 years to life in state prison.
His mother, Linda Rhodes, watched and wept when her son testified on Friday. When the jury got the case on Monday, a well-wisher from Highland Falls passed by her, lightly squeezed her shoulders and whispered, "May God be with you."
[If you go through the reporter's blog, you will also notice that Christopher Rhodes's current girlfriend took the fifth. I'm betting she knew about ongoing abuse, and didn't report it. Or about the murder itself. And that if she talked, "stuff" would probably happen.]
Posted by: silverside at Nov 23, 2005 12:28:53 PM
I see the Wendy McElroy readers are commenting here. She linked to this post (albeit halfway down, not from the beginning. Why do that? What does she have to hide?). She also linked to my web site about "Breaking The Silence". I don't mind different points of view, but please don't post entire articles you find elsewhere on the Internet.
I suggest you read Fatima's statement in its entirety, and visit my web site to see what McElroy and Sacks and other fathers' rights activists are ignoring. Sadiya Alilire has had custody of Fatima for several years. Fatima spoke out herself in "Breaking The Silence" about the abuse she experienced in her fathers' household. Fatima wants the custody case to stop. She wants to continue living with her mother. She wants to live out her remaining high school years as a normal kid. She can't do that if her father keeps taking her and her mother back to court over and over again, as he has been doing since the time she was born. This issue isn't about fathers. It is about abused children. In supporting McElroy and Sacks's side, you are ignoring abused children. The kind of treatment angry fathers' rights activists have been giving the documentary, Sadiya Alilire, and her daughter Fatima mirror what abused women and children go through in court.
PBS has also sent an internal memo to its employees instructing them how to deal with the onslaught of angry e-mails, letters, and phone calls from angry fathers' rights activists. Good for PBS. PBS isn't going to back down under the bully tactics of angry fathers' rights activists. It looks like PBS is supporting the documentary. I'm glad to hear that. You may read the memo on my web site.
Posted by: The Countess at Nov 23, 2005 12:32:59 PM
"But there are few secrets in a town of 3,700 [i.e. Highland Falls, NY]. Rhodes' and his brother's arrests over the years – for drugs, for assaults, for domestic violence – were common knowledge."
This quote is from the mandatory "reaction of the townspeople" type article on the Christopher Rhodes murder conviction.
To the so-called liberal media: That's right. Domestic violence kills. Those who commit domestic violence are very likely to abuse children. Or kill them too. Do we get it yet? But I suppose I should be happy that they are now telling the truth about this creep.
http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2005/11/23/verdict2.htm
Posted by: silverside at Nov 23, 2005 12:36:27 PM
ts: "People will say and do almost anything to win a custody case. When father's are accused of abuse in family court, many times than not, the accusations are false and are lies told as a means to win the case."
That's not true.
According to the two best and largest studies on the subject, false allegations of sexual abuse are rare -- in the range of 2 to 8 percent [1,2]. That means the other 92%-98% are meritorious, and this 92%-98% comprised the 152,400 *substantiated* cases on record for 1993 alone [3] (and, bearing in mind that child sexual abuse is a highly *underreported* crime, these are just the cases we know about).
1. Thoennes N, Tjaden PG: The extent, nature, and validity of sexual abuse allegations in custody/visitation disputes. Child Abuse & Neglect 14: 151-163, 1990.
2. Everson MD, Boat BW: False allegations of sexual abuse by children and adolescents. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 28: 230-235, 1989.
3. McCurdy K, Daro D: Current trends in child abuse reporting and fatalities: The results of the 1993 annual fifty state survey. Chicago: NCPCA, 1994.
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Rita Smith (NCADV) & Pamela Coukos (PCADV), "Fairness and Accuracy in Evaluations of Domestic Violence and Child Abuse in Custody Determinations", The Judges Journal, Fall 1997, Pp. 38-56:
"(...)Although both common sense and the prevailing legal standard dictate careful consideration of evidence in domestic or family violence when determining custody, allegations of domestic violence and/or child sexual abuse made during a divorce or custody proceeding are not always taken seriously. These allegations often are wrongly perceived as false because they are asserted in a contentious environment and because of the widespread myth that parents fabricate domestic violence and child abuse allegations in order to gain an advantage in court. When combined with the misuse of psychological syndrome evidence, the perception that a parent has fabricated the allegations often results in unfair retribution against the reporting protective parent. (...)
Using unscientific "syndrome" evidence can have serious consequences, and according to the American Psychological Association, in domestic violence cases, "psychological evaluators not trained in domestic violence may contribute to this process by ignoring or minimizing the violence and by giving *inappropriate pathological labels* to women's responses to chronic victimization." (APA, Report of the APA Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family, 40 (1996)) The protective parent's mental "impairment" can be used to portray her as a less fit parent, and justify granting custody to the batterer. She may have to attend on-going mediation or marriage counseling with her abuser, endangering her further. In a worst case scenario, the diagnosis can result in the protective mother's loss of the child to foster care and even the ultimate termination of her parental rights. This can result in placement of the child back into the custody of the abuser, endangering the child further.
Unscientific syndrome theories also feed on a serious misperception of the rate of false accusations. In its Report of the Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family, the APA confirms that, "false reporting of Family violence occurs infrequently... reports of child sexual abuse do not increase during divorce and actually occur in only about 2 percent to 3 Percent of the cases... even during custody disputes, fewer than 10 percent of cases involve reports of child sexual abuse (APA Report, 12). If Parental Alienation Syndrome were as common as Gardner reports - 90 percent of his caseload - then the reporting of abuse should be much more prevalent. Furthermore, the overall reported rates should be dramatically higher in cases where custody is an issue as compared with the general population of families. But studies examining this comparison do not find significantly higher rates of any abuse allegations raised during divorce or custody proceedings. (Cheri Wood, "The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Dangerous Aura of Reliability", 27 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 1367-8, n. 7 1994) Moreover, these studies find only a very small rate of fabricated allegations in this context. (Nancy Thoenes & Patricia G. Tjaden, "The Extent, Nature and Validity of Sexual Abuse Allegations in Custody/Visitation Disputes", 14 Child Abuse and Neglect 151, 161-2 (1990) As the APA documents, "when objective investigations are conducted into child sexual abuse reports that surface during divorce or custody disputes, the charges are as likely to be confirmed as are reports made at other times." (APA Report, note 8 at 12)
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Pauline Quirion, Esq., wrote the following for a 1999 issue of the Women's Bar Journal:
"[t]he high frequency with which RO's [sic] are issued might lead some skeptics to assume that these orders are granted too easily for minor offenses and almost any man is at risk of being a defendant. The data from the new RO database in Massachusetts reflect otherwise. Men against whom RO's have been used are clearly not a random draw from the population. They are likely to have a criminal history, often reflective of violent behavior toward others.
Research suggests that false reports of family violence occur infrequently. Although many believe that women especially will lodge false charges of child abuse or battering against their spouses in an effort to manipulate or retaliate, the rate of false reports in these circumstances is no greater than for other crimes."
Posted by: The Countess at Nov 23, 2005 12:38:41 PM
It's no problem posting the whole article here, Silverside. I did ask you to find it for me. Thanks. What I don't want are fathers' rights activists coming here from Wendy McElroy's article spamming my comments section with articles. Fathers' rights activists often do that, and I won't tolerate it here.
I hate it when you have to register to read an article. I usually plug in 1922, say I'm male, and say my zip code is 90210 (Beverly Hills).
Posted by: The Countess at Nov 23, 2005 12:44:43 PM
You're welcome.
Speaking of false allegations... In the Rhodes case, the media from the very beginning tried to treat Jerica's mother like some sort of pariah, as if her story were simply "allegations." Chris is such a loving father, he couldn't have done this, blah blah blah. This particular article doesn't mention it, but the Rhodes family's penchant for abuse and control extended all the way up to the funeral, when they tried to block the mother from attending the wake. If that isn't the embodiment of abuse and control, I don't know what is.
Now that this guy is convicted, it's this ho hum, everybody KNEW he was a bastard who had been arrested for assault, drugs, and dv many times before. What would you expect?
What would you expect indeed.
Posted by: silverside at Nov 23, 2005 12:56:34 PM
Silverside, I followed that case, although I lost track of it towards the end. This article shows how her ex's family had been keeping her from her daughter for years. They tried to prevent her from having a private viewing. I don't know if she was able to do so. I think she was. Christopher Rhodes had custody of Jerica, right? He and his very influential family prevented Jerica's mother from seeing her. He had custody, and he still killed her. That's horrible.
Posted by: The Countess at Nov 23, 2005 1:12:45 PM
Silverside, I found a blog that was covering the Jerica Rhodes trial.
Posted by: The Countess at Nov 23, 2005 1:16:32 PM
"You sound like a little brat. You admit to three differant CRIMES, running away twice and willfull destruction of private property, and you blame your dad for putting you in foster care! You should have been put in a detention facility instead. Your father also had a right to be upset when the district attorney sent you to your mom since your father had custody of you. Finally, Yes a loving father does lock his daughter out of the house in the rain. He does it when he fears that his dish throwing, door braking daughter might endamger her other siblings. It sounds to me llike your father is better off letting you live with your mother since you insist on acting like a monster to him and your siblings because they also must live with your bad beh