Texas is pro-rich daddy with a vendetta that involved keeping his 17 year old son hostage

(Lubbock TX, Santa Fe NM)

I’m writing to this forum as a mother who is frustrated, discouraged, and even disgusted with the Texas (maybe more specifically with Lubbock County) child support system which, I believe, disregards and violates federal child support and custody laws. I am thankful for this forum as a place where I can speak my mind and communicate publically what should otherwise be a private matter.

Let me begin by saying that I do not live in Texas nor will I ever, due to the bad taste this state has left in my mouth as a result of the battle I’ve been fighting the past two plus years - a battle that defends my rights as a mother that raised her son as a single parent for the first 11 years of his life (his father and I never married and conveniently, after I decided to end the relationship with this unscrupulous man, he denied paternity). The battle defends the rights of my son, now 17 year old, who is being held in Texas against his will and without my consent as a parent who shares legal custody.
The legal action begin in New Mexico where we were all living at the time (I moved from Massachusetts to New Mexico expressly to provide my son with the opportunity to know his father). At age 11, with some trepidation, I agreed to allow my son to move over 2000 miles away to live with his father. Four years into it, he is now living with his father and fractured (by infidelity) Mormon step-family - he feels no bond to them and, further, feels a sense of alienation with these people: his father, a fundamental Christian; his step mother, a Mormon who has strayed from her faith (but is somehow able to remain in her flock); and two step-sisters whose heroines are the likes of right wing conservatives such as Ann Coulter. He feels a deep void and lack of “his brand” of spiritual, intellectual, and moral stimulation living with these people that he can hardly call his family.

The day of my sons 15th birthday, he is unwillingly (forcefully) and without my knowledge or consent (there is no co-parenting in this relationship), moved from Albuquerque to Lubbock Texas where his father now (and for the past several years) owns another residence and holds board positions and a deanship at Texas Tech University. He is moved as a punishment for reduced academic performance. Initially, just he and his father make the move. Months later, the step-mother and -sisters join them and the dysfunctional and disjointed pseudo-family is reunited.

Unhappy and desperate to be back in New Mexico and living with his mother, my son decides to take legal action. First, he writes a personal letter to a judge in NM. After months of legal action in NM, the case is dismissed on improper forum and moved to Texas jurisdiction. Determined to seek justice, he files a Preference of Child form in October, 2008 to express his desire that I be (once again) given exclusive rights to determine where he resides.

Three months later, we are heard by Judge SM (I won’t use his name for fear the posting may disappear) in a private three-day hearing. (Why a private court and why a full three grueling days? Don’t ask - I have no clue.) My son, now 16, was not allowed in the court room. Despite my request, Judge SM decided to meet (alone) with my son in private chambers instead of assigning a guardian at litem which I thought a more appropriate forum for my son to be heard under the laws that protect the rights of minors.

I, nor any legal counsel or court appointed representative, was present for this almost hour long meeting between my minor (16 year old) son and the judge. Why I or, better yet, my attorney (initials EN, now in Dallas) didn’t contest this is a question I have grappled with for almost a year now. From what the judge had to say and my son, there was little if any discussion about the Preference of Child filed with the courts. My son’s recollection is that the judge used the time during this private meeting to get up on a soap box and share his own personal family history (the story of how he grew up in Lubbock, ran away from home at my son’s age, was raised by strict parents, and probably wouldn’t be here today as a judge in Lubbock, Texas without the influence of a “father with a firm hand”).

After the meeting, we reconvened. The judge proclaimed that my son loves his bio-parents and wants, more than anything else for the fighting (between his bio parents) to stop. He then conveys his decision that physical custody remain with the father. There is no mention of my son’s parental preference or reason for denying my request to regain physical custody. My son’s father and I were strongly encouraged to stop fighting and work towards “co-parenting.”

Despite the fact that my son was clearly not bonded (emotionally, spiritually, or intellectually) with this new pseudo family, despite the fact that expert witnesses showed that there were deep-seated trust issues between my son and his father; despite his father’s promise to release him back to my custody at any time should that become his wish; and most of all despite my son’s expressed preference, we lost the right for my young adult son to live with the parent he choices to live with.

Despite the fact that my son’s father owns assets in the multi-millions (four homes, one a mansion, in Lubbock and two that I know of in Albuquerque); despite the fact that he is collecting child support from his new wife’s ex-husband in Utah; despite the fact that neither he nor his wife pay child support for his wife’s teenage son in Utah; despite the fact that my son’s father promised he would never come after me for child support -- the judge ordered me to pay child support!
In June, 2009 I was jobless (my position at a NM newspaper had been dissolved) and at the peak of a severe 18-month illness (probably stress induced) that required weekly doctor visits, tests, therapies and, ultimately, a surgery. In July, 2009 (six months after the judgment), I received the official order through the USPS.

The father is fully aware that I am under or unemployed (I am trying to rebuild a freelance graphic, web design, and PR business), recovering from this illness, and enrolled in a program (full time student status) to complete a double bachelors degree. The father continues to dip into my son’s college fund (court ordered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) to pay for his own legal fees and for my son’s therapy (ordered by the Texas court to help him deal with the stress and anxiety of his living situation). The father is now charging my son $300 a month for use of a car that he “so called” gave as a birthday gift but purchased with my son’s (court ordered) college fund.

The rich daddy has filed a motion to enforce child support order - a motion to “hold in contempt and punish” - threatening up to six years in jail and/or $6,000 in fines. I have been ordered to appear before the Lubbock County Courthouse (237th court) on February 1, 2010.

And the fight goes on . . .

P.S. I just learned that there is no way for me to appeal the January 2009 decision to a higher court (appeals must be within 30 days of the judge’s decision). I will seek other remedies within the limits of the law to express my belief that the system and the decision is/was flawed. When the minor (young adult) is not heard and both the judge and the father sit on boards and the faculty of Texas Tech University, I can’t help but question whether this was an impartial judgment and decision.