Lemia911
New Member
- Jurisdiction
- Virginia
After being arrested and placed on bond for DUID (a true case of sleep-driving while taking your correctly prescribed amount of Ambien) and felony child endangerment (my sleep-adventure apparently began when she tried to wake me in the middle of the night to ask if she could sleep with me) in 2011, there was an incident in which my daughter left the house without permission (first time she had done that too... at age 7) and me being a mom, flipped out when I couldn't find her (turned out she was 3 houses down asking a mom that I'm not familiar with, if her son was available to play before it was time to leave for school and the mom KEPT MY DAUGHTER THERE WITHOUT EVEN HINTING THAT SHE WAS THERE FOR 40 minutes or roughly until the deputy knocked on her door in a door-to-door search).
The child welfare detective that came to conduct just a brief interview was cordial until she found out that I was on bond for a drug charge and child endangerment. I had just been advised the night before to not speak to law enforcement or prosecutors without my attorney present even though I see no harm in being honest. I simply told her that she could make a quick call to my attorney to clear up any question of me being a fiend. The detective told me that she planned to make an example of me instead and arrested me for child cruelty and pushed the jurisdiction to revoke my bond. I was the sole caretaker of two kids, was estranged from my abusive parents, working 60 hours a week at a Neurology clinic with the accomplishment of turning it into a success... Until this happened.
A judge ended up placing the condition of no "unsupervised contact" with my children until both cases were resolved. My roommate being on a different schedule than me, my fiancé being deployed... I reluctantly agreed to sign a temporary guardianship form over to the mother of my ex-husband (not related to my children) whom was always quite the judgmental type. That's when HELL took over.... my parents (whom scarred their own 4 children, one all the way to involuntary commitment for 8 years, and another one all the way to suicide... and they thought of a courtroom as their stage)... read about my arrest on the front page of the paper. My mother filed for full custody of both kids. My father was more interested in lecturing me about how because I work 60 hours a week and haven't remarried is the sole reason I am worthless and now a disgrace.
I calmly stood up to my dad, whom promptly filed for custody of only my son. Then the parents of an ex-boyfriend (3 years removed at that point) heard that my parents filed, decided to file for custody of just my daughter because they never approved of me having my son. All used the basis of my pending charges as their grounds. The criminal cases concluded 10 months after my arrest. I was found guilty of exactly what I told the jury I was guilty of: "I was aware the side-effect existed, despite being at low risk for incurring it. I neglected to exercise additional measures to safeguard myself from having the episode. My prescription history was clean of abuse as it was a monitored control substance. I did not drink alcohol nor take other intoxicating medication with it. It was a horrible tragedy and the lack of a criminal record further than two speeding violations, must make me worth of some mercy from the court."
I was found guilty of the DUID, not-guilty of the felony child endangerment. I thought for sure the other jurisdiction would immediately drop their charges since my arrest for the child endangerment charge was acquitted which meant the kids could come home and everyone would drop their petitions. NOPE: It was another three agonizing months before I appeared for a pre-trial hearing only to hear the commonwealth drop the charge for a lack of evidence. My parents, and ex's parents whom never troubled themselves to show concern for the kids prior to this, whom just simply did not like that when they demanded I give up my job running the clinic that took me 9 years to build up, where I made $46,000/year plus conritributions to furthering my education, and access to on-sit nursery for the kids...
The accusations they made in the trial that took a year of temporary shared custody where they imposed demands on my ability to work the hours I did, and would not permit me to use the on site nursery but pay $325/week for daycare. It made me expendable to being out-sourced. In the end, the judge through-out all their petitions and assign each party an amount of my legal fees to pay that totaled $10,000 of a $35,000 bill that was just for the custody battles.
I was left without a job, and had to liquidate the IRA, and my children's college accounts, and my car was repossessed. It took me nearly a year to find a job making $14.00/hour to start rebuilding our lives. Those people that sued for custody haven't attempted to contact the kids or me since, but 3-4 times a year we still receive anonymous letters wishing awful things upon the kids and me. I thought we were in the clear, until a friend of my dad's came into the office I worked at. Within 2 months, the owners had gone from loving my work ethic to the doctor's wife throwing a chart at my head. I was told to resign and his wife refused to allow me to leave until I returned the key... which served as their proof that I willingly resigned
It took 2 months to find work helping a Neurology office go paperless which lasted 2 months until the newspaper article from my arrest was faxed to the owner. I was dismissed before having worked long enough to qualify for unemployment benefits. In the near 18 months since, I have sent out 1,012 resumes that I am able to provide documentation as to the company, not just a random email on craigs list. I was been on 27 interviews, which lead to 9 working interviews, which lead to 8 job offers, of which 7 were retracted within a week with no explanation as to why. And sadly, while on my first day starting at a library, I was promptly dismissed after anonymous fax came over with copies of that front page article from 2011.
I have shared custody of my daughter with her father whom stepped up just a few years ago. He is refusing to allow me to move the kids to Colarado for a fresh start. Is there anything I can legally do? I am not looking to sue to make a buck, I just want to be able to work, preferably as an advocate for the elderly and underinsured again.
The child welfare detective that came to conduct just a brief interview was cordial until she found out that I was on bond for a drug charge and child endangerment. I had just been advised the night before to not speak to law enforcement or prosecutors without my attorney present even though I see no harm in being honest. I simply told her that she could make a quick call to my attorney to clear up any question of me being a fiend. The detective told me that she planned to make an example of me instead and arrested me for child cruelty and pushed the jurisdiction to revoke my bond. I was the sole caretaker of two kids, was estranged from my abusive parents, working 60 hours a week at a Neurology clinic with the accomplishment of turning it into a success... Until this happened.
A judge ended up placing the condition of no "unsupervised contact" with my children until both cases were resolved. My roommate being on a different schedule than me, my fiancé being deployed... I reluctantly agreed to sign a temporary guardianship form over to the mother of my ex-husband (not related to my children) whom was always quite the judgmental type. That's when HELL took over.... my parents (whom scarred their own 4 children, one all the way to involuntary commitment for 8 years, and another one all the way to suicide... and they thought of a courtroom as their stage)... read about my arrest on the front page of the paper. My mother filed for full custody of both kids. My father was more interested in lecturing me about how because I work 60 hours a week and haven't remarried is the sole reason I am worthless and now a disgrace.
I calmly stood up to my dad, whom promptly filed for custody of only my son. Then the parents of an ex-boyfriend (3 years removed at that point) heard that my parents filed, decided to file for custody of just my daughter because they never approved of me having my son. All used the basis of my pending charges as their grounds. The criminal cases concluded 10 months after my arrest. I was found guilty of exactly what I told the jury I was guilty of: "I was aware the side-effect existed, despite being at low risk for incurring it. I neglected to exercise additional measures to safeguard myself from having the episode. My prescription history was clean of abuse as it was a monitored control substance. I did not drink alcohol nor take other intoxicating medication with it. It was a horrible tragedy and the lack of a criminal record further than two speeding violations, must make me worth of some mercy from the court."
I was found guilty of the DUID, not-guilty of the felony child endangerment. I thought for sure the other jurisdiction would immediately drop their charges since my arrest for the child endangerment charge was acquitted which meant the kids could come home and everyone would drop their petitions. NOPE: It was another three agonizing months before I appeared for a pre-trial hearing only to hear the commonwealth drop the charge for a lack of evidence. My parents, and ex's parents whom never troubled themselves to show concern for the kids prior to this, whom just simply did not like that when they demanded I give up my job running the clinic that took me 9 years to build up, where I made $46,000/year plus conritributions to furthering my education, and access to on-sit nursery for the kids...
The accusations they made in the trial that took a year of temporary shared custody where they imposed demands on my ability to work the hours I did, and would not permit me to use the on site nursery but pay $325/week for daycare. It made me expendable to being out-sourced. In the end, the judge through-out all their petitions and assign each party an amount of my legal fees to pay that totaled $10,000 of a $35,000 bill that was just for the custody battles.
I was left without a job, and had to liquidate the IRA, and my children's college accounts, and my car was repossessed. It took me nearly a year to find a job making $14.00/hour to start rebuilding our lives. Those people that sued for custody haven't attempted to contact the kids or me since, but 3-4 times a year we still receive anonymous letters wishing awful things upon the kids and me. I thought we were in the clear, until a friend of my dad's came into the office I worked at. Within 2 months, the owners had gone from loving my work ethic to the doctor's wife throwing a chart at my head. I was told to resign and his wife refused to allow me to leave until I returned the key... which served as their proof that I willingly resigned
It took 2 months to find work helping a Neurology office go paperless which lasted 2 months until the newspaper article from my arrest was faxed to the owner. I was dismissed before having worked long enough to qualify for unemployment benefits. In the near 18 months since, I have sent out 1,012 resumes that I am able to provide documentation as to the company, not just a random email on craigs list. I was been on 27 interviews, which lead to 9 working interviews, which lead to 8 job offers, of which 7 were retracted within a week with no explanation as to why. And sadly, while on my first day starting at a library, I was promptly dismissed after anonymous fax came over with copies of that front page article from 2011.
I have shared custody of my daughter with her father whom stepped up just a few years ago. He is refusing to allow me to move the kids to Colarado for a fresh start. Is there anything I can legally do? I am not looking to sue to make a buck, I just want to be able to work, preferably as an advocate for the elderly and underinsured again.
