That's awful. Why did she (your ex) do that? I take it the custody change was a separate action she filed for in your civil (divorce) case?
She did it because she is a mental case. After she came home for the last time drunk at 6 in the morning, I told her I had had enough.
We decide to divorce and went to mediation. We had an agreement, and she didn't like the amount of money she would get with a joint custody arrangement. So she took off with our three little kids one day and disappeared for a few weeks.
I didn't know where they were for that whole time. She'd just call and tell me they were "alright". Cops wouldn't do anything because in absence of a court order, any parent can hide the kids from the other parent.
Anyway, I got a court order to get hearing to get the kids home. Then she let me see them for a weekend. When she stopped by to get the kids she told me that she was not going to the hearing because she "hadn't been served". (Funny how she knew there was a hearing if she hadn't been served...)
Anyway, I told the kids to go in the house. She grabbed me and spun me around and threw me against the car in front of the kids. I wanted no part of that so I called the cops. The cop came so I had a good witness for what was going on.
Anyway the emergency custody hearing was in a couple of days and when I went I went into the hearing and her lawyer handed me a protection from abuse order that she had gotten the day before, signed by one Judge Fields, (who was well known in Maine for being a very aggressive "domestic violence advocate"). I knew her lawyer pretty well and I laughed - hey, I said, this is bogus and you knwo it. I called for the hearing, I called the cops, the cop was there when I was supposedly beating our daughter according to our complaint - this is going away in a hurry - right?
Yeah, right. Her lawyer quit the next day, but the complaint was there for almost two years. It was a nightmare. Eventually I, too was "found innocent", but I was broke, on the verge of a nervous breakdown and had lost custody of my kids. The "legal victory" was menaingl;ess.
Anyway, my case is not unusual.
THIS KIND OF STUFF HAPPENS ALL THE TIME.
I have had plenty of arguments with court apologists on this matter. When I ask them to look at the facts and their own experiences even the most rabid apologists admit that yes, it happens fairly frequently.
Oh, Judge Fields? Won an award from the local domestic violence service: http://wiscassetnewspaper.maine.com/2002-03-28/judge_plays_judge.html. By the way, my ex-wife was an employee for Family Crisis services for about a year.
Yeah, no corruption in the courts.
I don't like mentioniong that because I expect that you, too, think I am "guilty until proven innocent". Admit it. And then tell me again how the legal system works.