Articles Posted in Nassau County

A Puerto Rican couple married while they were citizens and residents of Puerto Rico. They had one son. The marriage was acrimonious. The husband physically abused the wife and threatened her life. He threw out the woman from their conjugal home. The woman escaped her abusive husband and fled with her seven month old son.

A New York Family Lawyer said the wife lived with her relatives in San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico but then a few months later, she left Puerto Rico and settled for good in New York City. Soon after the wife left the conjugal home with her son, her husband filed divorce proceedings against his wife. The woman was not served a summons. She had no idea that divorce proceedings had been filed against her. The husband served her notice of the divorce proceedings by publication in a newspaper of general circulation in Puerto Rico. On the date of the hearing, the wife failed to appear. A default decree of divorce was ordered. Custody was awarded to the husband and no visitation rights were awarded to the woman. The Puerto Rican Court recognized that at the time that it ordered the custody of the child to be given to the father, the physical custody of the child was with the wife. A New York Custody Lawyer said for this reason, the Puerto Rican divorce court also ordered the husband to pay $10 weekly support until such time that the husband gains custody of his son. Despite the custody decree, the husband never looked for his son. He never took physical custody of their son. And he did not pay child support as mandated by the Puerto Rican Court.

The wife went back to Puerto Rico six years after the divorce decree was entered against her. She asked the Puerto Rican divorce court to enforce that part of its decision for her ex-husband to pay child support of $10.

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The children in question were placed in petitioner’s foster care. Their birth mother’s drug use was the catalyst for the placement. Her whereabouts are unknown and she was not present at any of the Family Court proceedings. Respondent is the father of the children. At the time of the children’s placement, he was incarcerated in state prison on a murder conviction and will remain incarcerated until at least May 2016. By that time, both children will have passed their 18th birthdays. In early August 2000, an agency case worker took the children to visit respondent in prison.

A New York Family Lawyer said that, according to the agency worker this was the only visit respondent had with the children prior to the agency’s filing of separate petitions seeking the termination of his parental rights. These petitions alleged that respondent had evinced intent to forgo those rights by reason of his failure to visit or communicate with the children in the six-month period prior to the filing and had therefore abandoned them. She testified that she contacted respondent through prison channels after the aforementioned visit, but he never responded or contacted her. Some of the letters she sent to him were returned to the agency but she did not produce at the hearing copies of any of the letters she claimed to have sent. She testified that respondent provided no financial support for the children did not maintain contact with them, did not send cards, letters or gifts and that no one contacted the agency on his behalf before the petitions were filed. She maintained that the agency did nothing to prevent or discourage respondent from coming forward, nor were there any other obstacles that might have prevented him from contacting the agency.

A Bronx Family Lawyer said that, on cross-examination, however, the agency worker testified that before the petitions were filed, she telephonically spoke with a family service specialist from the Osborne Association who had contacted her on respondent’s behalf regarding the children.

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In this custody proceeding, a New York Family Lawyer said that, the Family Court, Bronx, awarded petitioner mother sole physical and legal custody of the parties’ child dismissed respondent father’s petitions based on violations of temporary orders of visitation, denied respondent’s second motion to dismiss the child custody petition, and issued a five-year order of protection forbidding respondent from exercising any corporal punishment against the child. A Bronx Order of Protection Lawyer said that defendant father appealed the decision.

The issue in this case is whether the Family Court erred in awarding the sole physical and legal custody of the child to the petitioner mother.

The Court said that, with regard to deprivation of respondent’s visitation rights, he had ample opportunity to present evidence of petitioner’s violations during the custody trial, but failed to do so. Moreover, the record indicates that petitioner supported the child’s regular and frequent visits with her father. Denial of respondent’s request for a subpoena was a proper exercise of discretion. A New York Custody Lawyer said there is no indication in the record that petitioner was using illegal drugs or had used them in the recent past, or that she had any medical or psychological condition that might negatively impact on her care for the child.

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