Articles Posted in Bronx

The natural parents, never married but lived together from 1967 to 1974, during which time three children were born. A New York Family Lawyer said that on August 1974, after many earlier criminal convictions, the natural father was convicted on drug charges and sentenced to prison for a two-year-to life sentence. In 1975 the natural mother voluntarily placed the second born child, who suffers from severe physical and mental handicaps, in temporary foster care. The mother abandoned the two other children and on December 7, 1976 the Family Court placed them in the Commissioner of Social Services custody for 18 months. A New York Custody Lawyer said that, during his entire imprisonment the natural father (whose whereabouts was then unknown) made no attempt to stay in touch with his family and he testified he heard nothing from the natural mother. Only after the agency, through its own diligent efforts, located him in a Correctional Facility in August 1977, did the natural father learned of the children’s foster care placements; immediately after being paroled, in September 1977, he visited the agency to seek custody or visitation. The three children, meanwhile, had lived in separate foster homes and facilities until summer 1977. The foster parents, had asked the agency for a handicapped child to adopt in 1976. After she had been placed in their home for some two months, the foster parents’ requested that the two other children join her; the children were reunited in September 1977 for the first time since 1975.

A Bronx Child Custody Lawyer said that the agency denied the natural father’s requests for custody or visitation, and he began legal proceedings to protect his rights. On December 1, 1977 he was adjudicated the legal father, and, by agreement among counsel he had two visits with the children, the first in December 1977 and the second in February 1978. Only the oldest child had any recollection of her natural father, having been only one year old when he was imprisoned, and the handicapped child being mentally incapacitated. When these proceedings came to trial the natural father was unemployed, on parole, and living on public assistance with a woman he had known less than a year, who was expecting his child in December 1978. The foster parents live with the three children in a three-bedroom suburban garden apartment. The foster father is employed as a maintenance man; foster mother is a full-time housewife.

A Bronx Family Lawyer said that the New York Hospital filed a petition pursuant to Section 384-b of the Social Services Law (“SSL”) seeking termination of parental rights and a transfer of custody and guardianship to NYFH; a petition was also filed by the Commissioner of Social Services (“CSS”) pursuant to Family Court Act (“FCA”) Section 1055 seeking an extension of this court’s original placement order entered in the course of a prior Article Ten neglect proceeding; and a petition in the form of a writ of habeas corpus filed by the natural father seeking return of the children to his custody.

In this case, the parties were divorced by judgment dated February 13, 2003. The Appellant father appealed from the order of the Supreme Court, Queens County dated August 28, 2009, which granted the Respondent mother’s motion for permission to relocate to North Carolina with the parties’ child.

A New York Family Lawyer said the parties in this case separated shortly after their daughter was born in 2000. They divorced in 2003, after a 2 1/2-year marriage. While the Respondent mother had child custody pursuant to a stipulation of settlement in the divorce proceeding, the child spent the first three weekends of each month with the Appellant father and his family, in addition to holidays and summer vacation.

The Respondent mother moved in the Supreme Court for permission to relocate to North Carolina with the child. At an expedited hearing, Respondent mother asserted that she desired a new beginning for herself and the child and that they would enjoy a higher standard of living and an improved quality of life. A New York Custody Lawyer said that while Respondent mother initially proposed continuing the Appellant father’s existing visitation and bearing the expense of flying the child to New York three times per month, she subsequently suggested reducing the Appellant father’s visitation to one visit per month, with extended summer vacation.

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Prior to the incident, infant plaintiff’s father was known to the defendant’s police officers at the 43rd Precinct, having previously been arrested by them approximately six times for drunkenness, abusive and physical assault upon his family. A New York Family Lawyer said in July, 1975 he assaulted his wife with a knife, inflicting lacerations which required suturing at the Hospital; a Bronx Divorce Lawyer said that she thereafter brought a divorce action, which resulted in further violence by the infant plaintiff’s father and threats by him that he would kill her and the children if she proceeded with the divorce action. A New York Custody Lawyer said that, the infant’s mother thereupon went into the Family Court where, she obtained a preliminary order of protection against her husband; thereafter, the order was finalized for one year and, over her strenuous objections, was amended to grant to the father visitation with the infant plaintiff from 10:00 A.M. on Saturdays to 6:00 P.M. on Sundays. After the parties left the courtroom the father attempted to assault his wife and he had to be restrained by a court officer. The Family Court judge was informed of the incident and thereupon directed the court officer to get him out of the building; however, the judge did not rescind his week-end visitation with the infant.

A Bronx Family Lawyer said that, in accordance with the provisions of the Family Court Act, a “Certificate of Order of Protection” was duly issued to the infant’s mother by the clerk of that court on November 6, 1975 certifying that an Order of Protection had been issued to her, pursuant to which the infant’s father was forbidden to assault, menace, harass, endanger, threaten or act in a disorderly manner toward petitioner and he is to remain away from the home of said petitioner.”

Two days later, the infant’s mother took the infant to the 43rd Precinct to accord the infant’s father his week-end visitation. He took the infant and, as he was walking away, he made a death threat against his wife, and the infant, and he indicated to his wife that before the week-end was up she would be making “the sign of the cross” which to them meant that there would be a death. The mother immediately went into the precinct and told the desk officer of the death threats to herself and the infant; she showed the desk officer the Certificate of Order of Protection; she advised him of her fears and told him that she was frightened for the safety of her child and herself and that the Order of Protection protected her from such threats and she requested the police to take her husband into custody for violating said order. However, the police refused to do anything whatsoever. The infant’s father failed to return the infant at 6:00 P.M., as required by the Order of Protection. The mother again went into the station house and she again spoke to the police officer and the lieutenant she again demanded that the police arrest her husband for violating the order and protect the infant; once again the police refused to do anything whatsoever and told her to wait a couple of hours and that “perhaps” the father had taken the infant to a movie. Thereafter, the infant father’s sister entered his apartment. She found him lying on the floor with an empty whiskey bottle and an empty pill bottle lying beside him. She also found the infant, who had been viciously attacked, mutilated and severely injured by her father and she telephoned the police. The father had attacked the infant at about 7:00 P.M. with a fork, a knife and screwdriver; he had attempted to saw her leg off with a saw; she had been slashed from head to toe and she had sustained severe multiple internal injuries. Minutes later police officers from the same 43rd Precinct arrived and they rushed the infant to the Hospital in their police car, without waiting for an ambulance; the infant was immediately taken into surgery and she was operated. The infant was in a coma for several days and she remained in a critical condition for approximately three weeks and was hospitalized until December 19, 1975 she remains severely and permanently disabled. The father was arrested after the attack on the infant and he was thereafter indicted by the Grand Jury, tried and found guilty of attempted murder of the infant and he is now serving a jail sentence for the crime.