An upstate New York domestic violence survivor, author, and family child advocate Francesca Amato said Ulster County Family Court Judge Anthony McGinty violated her rights by awarding custody of her teen son to her abusive ex — and she claims other female litigants are facing similar fates, an explosive federal lawsuit alleges. Judge McGinty placed her 13-year-old son with a father, who has a … [Read more...]
‘Women Are Routinely Discredited’: How Courts Fail Mothers and Children Who Have Survived Abuse
This report from The Fuller Project, in partnership with the Guardian, details the routine family court failure to believe and protect mothers and children who have survived abuse and how abusive partners using the courts to control and harass their current and former partners. “I’m losing everything,” says Marissa, who learned last September, in the middle of an already contentious custody … [Read more...]
7-Year-Old Julissia Batties Killed Inside Mom’s Bronx Apartment, Despite History of Abuse Detailed in Court Papers
The long and ultimately fatal custody battle lost by a devastated Bronx grandmother forced to return a 7-year-old girl to her mother and the apartment where the child was fatally beaten is detailed in court documents. Little Julissia Batties, removed from the custody of doting grandmother Yolanda Davis in April 2020, was punched eight times early Tuesday morning by a teenage half-brother, … [Read more...]
Woman Shot 4 Times by Ex-Husband on Same Day of Their Child Custody Hearing
(Houston, TX) Aaron B. Wright has been arrested after allegedly cutting off the power to the home of his ex-wife and their four children before breaking in through a window and shooting her four times -- all on the same day they were both scheduled to appear in court for a child custody hearing. Read more here. … [Read more...]
Washington Post: When DV Victims Go to Court Without a Lawyer, Odds are Stacked Heavily Against Them
CJE Director Kathleen Russell recently testified in the Connecticut Legislature on Sen. Alex Kasser's coercive control bill, where she focused on the tragic preventable filicide case of 7-month-old Aaden Moreno, and his protective mother, Adrianne Oyola. This mother's plea to protect her son fell on deaf ears, when Judge Barry C. Pinkus refused to extend her restraining order against the boy's … [Read more...]