HOW ASSIDUOUSLY DID THEY SEEK A MONITOR?
by Sharon Rondeau
(Apr. 25, 2017) — A hearing to take place on Tuesday to contest the decision of the Edelman Children’s Court in Monterey Park, CA to award legal and physical custody of a toddler to her father will not provide the opportunity for the mother to see her daughter for the first time in six months.
In March of last year, the child, who was then 15 months old, was detained by the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) based on a referral from Detective Sean Horton of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) following a physical altercation between the parents on December 20, 2015.
In court testimony, Horton claimed the existence of a video depicting the mother as the aggressor during the incident, which under California law is reason to award custody to the other parent if both are seeking custody of a child or children. However, the video has never been produced.
According to the mother, the father never sought custody after she put him out of her home following an earlier domestic violence incident. She then received a restraining order.
Later, he obtained a restraining order against her.
Although never married, the mother has been charged with “spousal abuse” and faces a trial later this year.
Despite her grave concern over her child’s welfare and safety, the mother, Michelle Robinson*, reported that the Department has seen her daughter only once since her custody was changed more than 13 months ago.
Robinson has never been accused of harming or neglecting her child.
As the business day unfolded on Tuesday on the West Coast, Robinson informed The Post & Email that a visit she requested at the last hearing on Good Friday, April 14 was not scheduled, allegedly because an approved monitor, mandated by the DCFS case plan, could not be secured.
During that hearing, Robinson pointed out that there are numerous sheriff’s deputies and social workers in the courthouse at any given time who might be able to fulfill the role of a monitor.
She said she was informed at the last minute that her daughter would not be brought to court to visit with her on Tuesday although requesting the status of her request on several occasions between April 14 and this morning.
Because of difficulties finding a monitor with whom she is comfortable and of whom the Department approves, Robinson has been unable to see her daughter since last October. Two older siblings have also been unable to see her.
Robinson believes that the father of her child was involved in a very serious crime and said she has reported what she knows to the LAPD, including text messages exchanged between certain parties as evidence.
Robinson’s child’s case bears similarities to those of the Williamses and the Hendersons to reportedly include missing or faulty documentation and questionable reasons for detaining the child or children in the first place. All three sets of parents have described DCFS social workers’ subjective evaluations of their personalities as well as their responses to their children’s removal as factors to determine visitation and ultimately whether or not their children were returned.
Other children known to DCFS social workers have died at the hands of abusive parents to whom they were returned from safer homes.
In April 2013, “Baby Sammy” of Sacramento was taken from fit parents after his mother sought a second opinion for a diagnosed heart ailment. Likely due to national and international attention, the child was returned to his parents and the case closed in relatively short order.
“This is what it means to be free in America,” one blogger wrote of the Nikolayevs’ story. He further expounded:
When you don’t even have the basic right to make decisions about your own child… and when your own child can be forced from you at gunpoint in your own home that was entered illegally… you know that freedom has officially hit the waste bin of history.
Perhaps the greatest irony is that the parents are originally from Russia… but they had to come to the United States to find the Soviet Union.
To the best of our knowledge, the eight Henderson children became adoptees to other people several years ago. The three Williams children are facing imminent adoption by their grandparents despite the parents’ vigorous attempts through the California and appellate courts to effect their return.
The parents in all three cases have reported that they have been unable to obtain access to the files maintained by DCFS on their child or children and that judges and commissioners have acted in bad faith and in violation of their constitutional rights.
Lawsuits against Los Angeles DCFS have been filed and won in the recent past.
Under juvenile court rules, parents are forbidden from releasing case documentation if and when they are able to obtain it, rendering it more difficult to convey to the press the corruption they allege is systemic within the child-protective system.
Reports from various sources, including the director of the Baltimore, MD child-protective agency, claim that the industry thrives on the detention of children, justified or not, which causes funds to be released from state governments and ultimately paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has designated April as “National Child Abuse Prevention Month.”
*Not her real name
Update, 2:23 p.m. EDT: At 11:00 a.m. PDT, Robinson sent an email in which she wrote, “They ruled against me…They don’t care. I think the female deputy almost cried.”
