JACOB' S HOME
Illinois Summary
On April 20, 2015, after a two-day hearing, Judge Douglas granted MICHAEL’s request to implement a parenting schedule and denied MICHELLE’s request to extend a previously issued plenary order of protection. The order established a reunification protocol for MICHAEL and J.R.G. given the significant amount of time that MICHAEL had not seen the child.
After a prolonged period of motion practice (MICHELLE fired her attorney and the new attorneys tried to undo the April 20th order), the parties ultimately agreed on the court assigning Mr. Thomas Kenny as the guardian ad Litem and that Dr. Mark Goldstein. Psych.D. would shepherd the reunification between MICHAEL and the minor child. However, MICHELLE proved to be marginally cooperative with the reunification process at the beginning and outright dismissive of the reunification process by November of 2015. Indeed, per order dated August 17, 2015 (three months after the original reunification order), the Guardian Ad Litem specifically secured an order requiring MICHELLE to contact Goldstein and cooperate with his intake procedure.
MICHAEL filed a Petition to Rule to Show Cause on September 3, 2015 alleging that MICHELLE had failed to contact Goldstein per the August 17th order. Another Petition for Rule to Show Cause filed thereafter filed by MICHAEL on December 3, 2015, again alleging not only with want of cooperation with the reunification process but also overt manipulation of the child given revelations that MICHELLE had told the child that another man to whom MICHELLE was “married” was the child’s Father.
At the time MICHAEL filed his second Petition for Rule to Show Cause, MICHELLE had left the jurisdiction without leave of Court unbeknownst to anyone involved in the case and secreted herself and the child in the State of Washington.
MICHELLE never followed through with Goldstein’s reunification regiment and her attorney withdrew on January 8, 2016. Thereafter secured a mittimus for contempt (analogous to a civil warrant) issued on January 8, 2016 given MICHELLE’s was not cooperating with the reunification plan. MICHAEL subsequently petitioned for and secured legal custody and Parental Responsibility for the minor child per order dated February 29, 2016.
Since January of 2016, J.R.G. had been declared a missing or exploited child. On January 27, 2017, the DuPage County Sheriff’s Department in conjunction with the Bellevue, Washington Police Department located MICHELLE and the child in the State of Washington. MICHAEL secured the child’s return over MICHELLE’s objection in Washington on February 24, 2017 and the child had been since residing with MICHAEL in Florida.
MICHELLE has since filed a multiple of motions both in Washington and Illinois. Initially, in February of 2017, MICHELLE filed a motion to transfer jurisdiction to Washington and to vacate the order from February of 2016 which gave MICHAEL custody of JACOB. In early March, she fired that attorney, asked for leave to amend some of the pleadings fired by the other attorney and maintained that the case belonged in Washington.
By April 10th, Judge Else in DuPage County, Illinois had concurred with the Washington courts and armed with the case law provided by my office concluded that Illinois had jurisdiction over Jacob best interests. As a result, all of the litigation initiated by MICHELLE in Washington was subsequently dismissed and the Washington courts went so far as to sanction MICHELLE.
Mother now maintains that MICHAEL’s Parenting Time should be suspended and the Court should award her possession of Jacob because the child is “seriously endangered by MICHAEL’s current possession” under the Court’s order of February 29, 2016. She additionally seeks to vacate the February 29, 2016 order because she was allegedly unaware of the ongoing court proceedings in Illinois because she had her mail held in Lombard.
My Attorney in Illinois moved to dismiss those motions along with an additional motion whereby MICHELLE maintained that MICHAEL never cooperated with Dr. Goldstein. On May 19, 2017.
Judge Else dismissed the Petition filed by MICHELLE relative to Dr. Goldstein but stated that while her arguments were week she nonetheless said that under the law she is entitled to an evidentiary hearing on the other petitions. He further admonished me that I would want a very strong record at the trial court level to mute any appeal on MICHELLE’s part.
The case is now set for evidentiary hearing on June 19th in Illinois on her Petitions which I am confident we will be able to defeat based upon the factual matter outlined above.