Regular readers of our Butler County family law blog will recall our previous post on a Minnesota couple that has taken their child custody dispute to extremes. The mother of five filed for divorce in 2011, spurring a custody battle that rages to this day.
She now faces felony parental alienation charges. Her former husband is trying to piece together a life with his kids after being accused by several of them of physical and emotional abuse.
When a court-appointed psychologist said in 2013 that the mother had been manipulating her kids into fearing their dad, the two oldest girls ran away. They were discovered two years later, living on a Minnesota ranch with a husband and wife allied with their mother.
Before the disappearance later discovery of the missing sisters and before the criminal charges against the mother, the parents had filed a custody agreement with a court in 2011. The dad later argued that he had not understood the agreement when he signed it, and that his then-wife had misrepresented the document to him. It was only then that he hired a family law attorney to represent him – a lesson he learned the hard way.
His attorney was able to get the custody agreement revoked.
Few divorces and child custody battles reach this level of animosity. As we noted in our previous post, most people who learn of this story will most likely feel that the children are the ones who have suffered most in the ordeal.
Many parents facing divorce want to do all they can to spare their kids trauma during the legal process, which is why they turn for help to legal professionals who have as their highest priority the protection of the children’s best interests.
