BM using cocaine
My boyfriend has a 5 year old son, he has been apart from his son’s mother for over 2 and a half years. His son has been coming to stay with us every weekend since March 2016. The mother established child support but never custody. When I gave birth to my daughter in October she refused visitation for three weeks. At that time my boyfriend filed a petition with the court for custody. They have not been able to agree and the case is still open with no custody order established. She keeps saying she doesn’t want an order and will let us see him whenever we want. We want court ordered visitation due to her previous refusals of visitation (over nothing). This last weekend a mutual friend of both of them came over to my house, she informed me that she was at bio mom’s house 3 weeks ago and she was doing cocaine and trying to pressure her into doing it. She also said the brothers of bio mom who live there are doing crack and meth in that house. While we were just seeking visitation, now we want to pursue custody. We have it recorded and want to bring it to court for emergency custody. I am not a drug user and I freaked out about this but now I’m starting to wonder if it will be viewed as an emergency in the courts? My boyfriend has felt like she has had the upper hand this entire time, as she says “you’re lucky I even let you see him. I can take him anytime”. I’m just curious if anyone has experience with this when the other parent is using drugs. There was a time when she was talking about using cocaine to my boyfriend and said “you better not be recording this. It will be out of my system anyway” now he records every interaction. How much evidence do we need? Thank you!
It’s “Hear-Say” at best. It’s
It’s “Hear-Say” at best. It’s coming from someone else who visited the house. You need to report it anonymously to CPS, you need to call the local police/sheriffs station and ask for a wellness check on the children, your DH’s lawyer needs to request drug fingernail/hair testing which he will most likely have to come out of pocket for but will show the results he needs. If there’s no current order then the absolute first thing he needs to do is get a Paternity test done when he has the kid. A judge won’t even look at a case without it done first and that would give her time to prepare for any drug testing. You need to request a wellness check up on the kid when BM is most likely doing drugs/high so cps/police can immediacy open a case or file a report that you can then use to get emergency temporary custody until getting into court for a court order.
You're having a knee-jerk reaction
to gossip that unfortunately has no bearing on your current custody/visitation case.
Keep this info under your hat, and call CPS. Get the individual who witnessed the drug use to also report it to CPS, and report it to the local police as well. Hopefully CPS will investigate and take action, or the cops will arrest an adult living there, which will give you something tangible to use to file for emergency custody.
Yes-ish we have experienced
Yes-ish we have experienced this. My DW was awarded full physical and legal custody of my SS at birth. She was a single teen mom. About 9mos later she nailed the SpermIdiot for CS ($110/mo). We met when SS-25 was 15mos old and married the week before he turned 2yo. A week later we were in court in response to an attempt by the SpermClan to gain custody.
We brought our witnesses including several who testified that the SpermIdiot had the Skid at parties where he was given whiskey and other drugs when he was 6-13mos old. We had police officers testify on our behalf regarding the SpermIdiots drug use, gun violations, etc, etc, etc.... All to no avail. The Judge did very little with all of that testimony. Most likely because he gave minimal visitaition to the SpermClan though the SpermGrandHag was his house keeper for his vacation property. I can't help but think that if SpermGrandHag had not been his housekeeper the SpermClan visitation would have been even less than what was ordered. Since we never lived nearer than 1200miles to SpermLand the visitation schedule was long distance (5wks summer, 1wk winter, 1wk spring). The SpermClan usually took their visitation but over the 16+ years we lived under that CO there were multiple years where they took zero visitation.
Good luck. I hope you get a Judge who actually focuses on the best interests and safety of the kid rather than one like our Judge. After a long day in court he closed with "I hope everyone feels better. Now I am going to do what I always do."
Make sure cps AND police (her
Make sure cps AND police (her local police) have your contact info available in the event she is busted. For some strange reason moms seem to have major memory loss when they get handcuffed and during tax season. They cant seem to remember there is a bio parent. Sooo, they tell cps HEY call my mother, granny will take my child. I have NO idea where dad is, he is absentee. OR they had out child tax credits to bm family too reporting bio father location unknown.
Before you know it your in court trying to get custody of your child from BM's family who has it out for you too. MAKE your presences know in her community. Even IF she is never caught. Schools can be your allies.
It's a very strange phenomena I have witnessed over and over again.
TRUE STORIES
**no child should be living with a dirtbag parent who cant stay clean and sober. Kids deserves better.**
BM using cocaine
In court, especially family court, documentation is everything, if at all possible, you really should consider hiring a private investigator. The cost is well worth it and if you are diligent and do your own homework, you can provide them with times and places where they can use their time wisely and get the best evidence for the least time expended. In cases of drug use, a picture really is worth a thousand words.