Nassau County

Published on: February 26, 2012

Court Rules on Order for Protection

by Stephen Bilkis

The family court in this cased was tasked to decide whether or not it has the right to issue an order of protection against the father of the children who allegedly abused his minor sister-in-law. According to a New York Family Lawyer on behalf of the abused child, the social services department filed a petition against the father for abuse of his sister-in-law and neglecting his own children. Based on the investigation made by the family court, the father is determined to be guilty of abuse.

According to the facts gathered by the investigation, the sister-in-law moved in to the house of the children’s father when she was 16 years old. The father had intercourse with her inside the house and the hotel room where the rest of the family stayed for a brief period. The father was also guilty of neglect since one of his sons was a witness to the sexual abuse. A New York Criminal Lawyer said the father also had a loaded gun inside their home which could prove to be dangerous to his sons. One son was still a baby while the other was a toddler during that time.

After the court findings were revealed, the family court has ordered child custody to the mother of the children. The court also did not impose any terms and issued protection orders. The father was ordered by the court to avoid any contact with his sons until they reach the age of majority. No protection order was issued for the abused sister-in-law since she was already 18 by the date of the hearing.

Published on: February 25, 2012

Court Decides Adoption Case

by Stephen Bilkis

This family court will decide on the adoption of a child. The biological father has requested the court to dismiss the adoption hearing. The father also wants to move the entire proceeding to the family court. The petitioner, who is the would-be adoptive father, challenged the motion to dismiss with a petition. An New York Family Laywer the adoptive father included in his decision that the permission of the natural father to adopt the child is no longer required.

The child who was being disputed was conceived when her mother was already separated with her then husband. Sometime later, they were divorced. Since the birth of the child, the father who is also the petitioner in this case, has always asserted his parental rights. After the birth of the child, the mother had reconciled with the natural father but they did not get married again. As a result of their reconciliation, they were opposed to the idea of allowing the natural father to visit her.

The dispute over the child has reached the family court. A New York Criminal Lawyer said the proceedings have established that visitation rights should be given to the natural father. The adoptive father has moved to revoke the paternal rights of the natural father by adopting the child himself.

Published on: February 19, 2012

Ex-husband Found in Violation of Order for Protection

by Stephen Bilkis

In 2001 and Bronx County Criminal Court issued a three-year order of protection in favor of a woman and her child and against her ex-husband. In 2002, the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) filed a neglect proceeding against the ex-husband. ACS alleged that the ex-husband had not been supporting his child. During the pendency of these neglect proceedings the Bronx County Family Court issued a temporary order of protection, ordering the ex-husband not to have any contact whatsoever with his child or his estranged wife until the neglect proceedings are disposed of by the Family Court.

While the Family Court was hearing the neglect proceedings, ACS filed two petitions for contempt against the ex-husband for having violated the Family Court’s temporary order of protection on May 15, 2003 and November 7, 2003 when he called his child at the apartment of his ex-wife.

According to a New York Criminal Lawyer, on the scheduled date of hearing for the violation petition, the ex-wife failed to appear and so the Family Court found the ex-husband to have willfully violated the temporary order of protection. Later that day, the ex-husband came to court and the Family Court vacated its finding on the violation petition.

Published on: February 18, 2012

Court Issues Order for Protection Against Abusive Father

by Stephen Bilkis

A mother went before the Family Court in Richmond County in New York on a petition asking the family court to declare that her fifteen year-old son is a person in need of supervision (PINS). A New York Custody Lawyer said that during the fact-finding hearing, the Family court found that the fifteen year old did not need supervision but protection. It appears from the testimonies of the boy and his mother that the boy’s father would regularly come home drunk. And during his drunken rage, he would verbally abuse and assault the fifteen year old boy. The most recent episode was when the father attacked the fifteen year old with a baseball bat.

The Family court issued a bench warrant for the arrest of the father of the fifteen-year old. The police arrested the father and brought him to the family court so that he can be within the jurisdiction of the court. While the father was in the Family Court, the judge apprised the father of the petition of the wife in behalf of their fifteen year old son. He explained to him that he was issuing a temporary order of protection in the boy’s favor while the Family court was conducting a hearing on the mother’s petition. The Family court explained to the father that he cannot strike, menace, harass or recklessly endanger the boy during the effectivity of the temporary order of protection. The Family court ordered the father to leave the house and to stay away from the house and his fifteen year old son until the Family court has decided on the mother’s petition. In the meantime, the Family court also ordered the Child Protective Service to conduct an immediate investigation to see if a child protective proceeding should also be brought before the Family Court.

A New York Family Lawyer said that after the temporary order of protection was issued by the Family court, the father returned to the family home and barged into the bedroom of his fifteen year old son and threatened the boy. He yelled at the boy accusing him of being the cause of his expulsion from his own house. The mother called the police and the Family court issued a warrant of arrest against the father. The Family Court also ordered the Special Services for Children to file a neglect petition against the father.

Published on: February 17, 2012

Abusive Relationship between Mother and Son ends up in Court

by Stephen Bilkis

A mother was working full time as a public elementary school teacher. After teaching hours, she held two other jobs supervising after school activities in other schools. She was divorced and had three children from two different marriages. The gap between the ages of her three children was large. Her eldest daughter was already a freshman at Princeton and living in the dormitory when the middle child, the son, was in 7th grade and the youngest daughter was just three years old.

A New York Family Lawyer explained that in February 14, 2008, the mother received a bill from an internet cable company for pornographic pay-per-view sessions. She had received a similar bill in the past from the same internet cable company for the same pornographic pay-per-view services. She talked with her son about it after the received the bill on the first time and warned him that pornography can be addictive and she surmised that it was probably the reason why his grades were failing. The son promised not to do it again.

The bill which arrived on February 14, 2008 was the second such bill and she wanted to discuss it with her son but he denied it and walked away from his mother. His mother was so frustrated and so angry that she took a belt and hit her son repeatedly. The boy resisted and fought back and then he tried to get away but his mother grabbed him and they both fell to the floor. The corporal punishment resulted in welts and bruises on the boy’s back, arms, chest and face.

Published on: February 16, 2012

Court Rules on Order of Protection Case

by Stephen Bilkis

A man from Albania migrated to the United States. He had lived in Brooklyn, New York for a few years when he went back home to Albania on a visit and met the woman who would become his wife. They married in Albania but a few weeks after their wedding, the man left his wife with his parents in Albania to go back to the US. The man visited his wife yearly for a few weeks at a time until their firstborn son was about three years old and he had the boy circumcised. After the circumcision, the boy asked to be taken to the bathroom often. The bathroom was an outhouse in the back corner of the man’s parents’ house. The man told his wife not to give in to his repeated demands but the wife felt that the boy must be in some discomfort so she took him to the bathroom. When she came back in, the man slapped his wife that her head hit the wall.

A New York Criminal Lawyer explained that the pattern of physical abuse began. A few years later, the man was able to secure green cards for his wife, his son and his parents and brothers and brought them all to America. All the time that the wife lived with her husband in the United States, he was controlling her every activity and her every movement. He refused to give her money, refused to allow her to find employment and refused to allow her to leave the house unless accompanied by one of his relatives. He started calling her names and refused to address her by her given name. He even refused her pleas to get pre-natal medical care for the three successive children she had been pregnant with.

According to a Nassau County Family Lawyer, when she was pregnant with their fifth child, the man took his wife and children back to Albania to attend a relative’s wedding but instead of bringing them back with him to the United States, he left his pregnant wife and four children in the care of the man’s parents and brothers. He took the passports of his wife and his children. It was at this time that the man first started accusing his wife of having affairs with other men when they were living in New York. He claimed that the child the wife was carrying was the product of her adulterous relations.

Published on: February 11, 2012

Seeking advice from family planning lawyers is essential in understanding where you stand in your state’s federal estate tax laws

by Stephen Bilkis

Many people tend to overlook the likelihood of being hit with certain taxes because they aren’t considered “rich.” But according to a New York Family Lawyer, many upper middle-class families could be hit with an unplanned tax rate as high as 35%.

Currently the law provides an exemption for estate taxes of up to $5 million for those who die in 2011 and 2012. What many families are unaware of is that this amount can easily be exceeded when you take life insurance coverage, a valuable home, healthy retirement balances and other assets into account.

“Don’t forget to count any private business ownership interests such as shares in a family corporation or partnership,” explained a New York Custody Lawyer.

Published on: February 11, 2012

How the new estate planning laws have changed

by Stephen Bilkis

According to a New York Family Lawyer, President Obama signed an estate tax overhaul last December. This new law will allow certain upper class couples, who are on their first marriage, to leave their possessions in such a way that will greatly reduce or eliminate taxes.

Under the new law, you are allowed to leave your spouse an unlimited amount with no tax. There are a couple of changes in this new law. First, your lifetime tax exemption is now raised to $5 million from $3.5 million. A widowed spouse can also now transfer any unused amount from their spouse to their selves. So now a total of $10 million could be left tax exempt.

This new law is not retroactive. If your spouse died before 2011 then you can’t claim the new changes. The first spouse to die has to file an estate tax return in order to claim this benefit even if no tax is due. The widowed spouse needs to file this return even if the dollar amount left seems to be low. Since this new law keeps the exemption from skipping a generation, a very rich person is forced to use the exemption to avoid tax for their grandchildren.

Published on: February 10, 2012

President Obama calls the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional

by Stephen Bilkis

President Obama recently proclaimed the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which basically prohibits the recognition of same sex marriages, unconstitutional, and ordered the Justice Department to discontinue any defense of the act, explained a New York Family Lawyer

Supporters of same sex marriages were elated by this decision, but republicans questioned his political motive, because the President opposes same-sex marriage, has recently pushed to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell law”(bars military from letting gays serve), and had done just the opposite his first two years in office.

Attorney General, Eric H. Holder Jr. explained the decision in a letter to Congress. His letter basically said the administration would no longer defend the law despite the fact that they had defended it for the past two years.

Published on: February 10, 2012

Estate Planning Issues

by Stephen Bilkis

The estate tax question that loomed in previous years was finally settled at the very end of the year by Congress. The estate tax, gift tax, and generation-skipping tax (GST) were all given top rates of 35 percent with a $5 million lifetime individual exemption.

These exemptions for estate and gift taxes are even transferable between spouses, a New York Family Lawyer has learned. Should one spouse pass away, the executor of the estate can transfer any unused portion of this $5 million individual exemption to the surviving spouse.

As the law now stands, this law will only stand through 2012, unless something changes. Matters may be entirely different in 2013. Those who know the laws of estate planning are advising clients to take advantage of this window of opportunity.