Complaint Review:
Juvenile & Domestic Court of Roanoke County
I am friends with a woman who has been severely abused by the justice and legal system, it seems solely because she is unable to afford legal counsel. After suffering with an abusive spouse for years, she finally got the courage to get out of the relationship.
Her husband, for privacy reasons let's call him "Bruce" had been arrested one night after a drunken argument, during which he flung cans of food at both my friend, "Claudia", and her 11 year old daughter, "Lacey". Lacey called 911 from her mother's phone and the operator clearly heard him threatening both Claudia and the child, actually taunting Lacey as though he were her age, telling her to "step to him" and cursing at her. The call was recorded and the officers that responded arrested him. He was released and sent home the following morning. Within hours, police were there again while he threatened Claudia. Within a week, he was arrested a second time, but the magistrate chose NOT to press charges and released him within hours, the police officer (who had arrested him the week prior) being forced to drive him BACK to the home.
Finally, Claudia was able to get a protective order against him that included Lacey, and her young son, "Trey". 2 weeks later, the judge ordered 2 years no contact between Claudia and Bruce. Bruce violated that order in the parking lot of the court house, not 5 minutes after leaving the hearing.
Bruce, who never worked himself, moved to his parents and they hired the city Mayor as his attorney. From that moment on, Claudia began to have trouble with the lawyer bullying her and the guardian ad litem assigned to represent Trey in the custody hearing. Claudia moved to another town 45min away to avoid continued harassment by Bruce's family. Trey spent every other week with her, but she had physical/primary custody. At the hearing for custody, physical custody was transferred to Bruce, with Legal custody remaining JOINT between the parents. Bruce did not know Trey's doctor's names, nor their phone numbers (Claudia knew the info by heart) and did not even know the names of the medications Trey took for his ADHD or his allergies. He had been completely oblivious to MOST of Trey's medical and school info. None of this mattered as the only person in court who was allowed to speak was Bruce's lawyer. Claudia was supposed to have Trey every weekend.
She had to argue with Bruce's parents, who lied about visitation being "revoked" by various agencies and forcing Claudia to have these agencies and supervisors call his parents to remind her that neither them, nor Bruce could change the court order. Claudia got ONE weekend and not another visit as the court order stated. She filed show cause papers to get another hearing, and the hearing was almost 6 months from when she filed.
She could not afford counsel, and due to the trouble with Bruce's parents, she moved back to Roanoke to live with her mother hoping to be closer to Trey.
Trey cried to her when he did see her (Under Bruce's parents supervision) that his dad was saying things to him about her and about court, etc...and did not understand why he could not go with her like he was supposed to. Nobody would help. Legal aid refused the case as they do not handle custody. Police Department would not enforce the order because it was "civil" and court was months away.
When they finally made it to court, the guardian ad litem and Bruce's lawyer made an agreement, without Claudia, and presented it to the judge. The ad litem told the judge Claudia had not been asked her opinion, and still,, the judge gave her no chance to speak. He did NOT hear the case at ALL regarding their failure to follow the court order for visitation. She did not get to speak in court. Bruce had been in trouble for driving on a DUI revoked license with Trey in the car, and his mother had an assault charge against a mutual friend.
Still, nobody allowed Claudia the opportunity to speak. The protective order had been repeatedly violated, and no one would help her. Because city & county are different jurisdictions and often times she was in the city when the violations occurred, they officials passed the buck back and forth, neither jurisdiction wanting to DO anything.
Trey told the guardian ad litem he wanted to spend the weekends, at least, with his mother, and an officer from Roanoke County, having responded to a call involving the violation of the court order, gave her a statement saying that the child was under obvious durress and coaching from the father. None of that was heard.
She has court again soon, and has not been able to finance an attorney as they are extraordinarily expensive and she is on a fixed income. The man who has her son has a violent record, not just toward her and the children, but toward his mother and sister. Detectives questioned several family members about him before the holidays regarding posession of child pornography, indicating that they had disks in their posession belonging to Bruce. Nothing ever came of that. He had 3 driving on suspended license charges, the third being a driving on a DUI revoked license, and nothing came of that either, in fact, despite his license having almsot 2 years of suspensions pending (if he ever reinstated it from the DMV suspension for no insurance), he has somehow obtained his license back.
I do not understand how the City Mayor can stand up for an individual like this in a court of law and purposely take advantage of a low income mother who has been the ONLY one taking care of the family, especially their son, for the duration of his life. With all of the charges against him, and a recording from the 911 dispatch of him threatening an 11 year old girl, along with all other things considered, it makes NO sense to me, nor to any of the lawyers I have spoken to how she can consistently be ignored in the court room.
It is my opinion that the mayor and the judge are probably great golfing buddies outside of court, since they have no need to speak to anyone during court cases and the judge feels no need to hear both sides of the case. Trey is suffering. And his father obviously does not care, telling the boy that it is illegal to talk to his mom. Trey is 7.
If this isnt the BIGGEST rip-off of them all...I don't know what is!! She has no way to get an attorney, and without one, the city mayor representing her abusive husband just waltzes in the courtroom and gets whatever he asks for, without giving Claudia even a chance to speak.
Here's to Roanoke County Justice System...and to the MAYOR who talks a good game in his campaign about being friendly and working "for the families" while representing a man who has been violent to his wife, his mother, his siblings, his child, his step children, and several others and who does not follow court orders if he doesn't feel like it, since his high priced lawyer that mommy and daddy pay for can just walk in to court and tell the judge it's all ok.
Now Claudia gets 8 hours a week with her son, keeping in mind the original order was for weekends, and the ONE day a week she sees him, his father refuses to give Trey his medication resulting in Trey suffering from headaches, antsiness, hyperactivity, and sometimes nauseaa. He sleeps half the time that he is with his mom and complains that he doesn't get his medicine on that day, only the rest of the week and doesn't know why.
Way to go Rke County!! Let's give a hand to the city Mayor for making all this possible.