Posted on 12/09/2005 7:40:49 AM PST by Fido969
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Father's bid to have son returned is stymied
By DOUG HARLOW Staff Writer
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NORRIDGEWOCK -- Bruce Holt of Martin Stream Road says the city of Elizabethtown, Ky., must have a saying similar to the half-joking "Welcome to Maine, now go home."
The Elizabethtown version, he said, goes something like: "Welcome to Hardin County -- good luck getting your son back."
Holt, along with his brother Eric Holt and nephew Dana Knight, traveled 1,300 miles by car to Elizabethtown, 44 miles south of Louisville, this past week to bring Holt's 7-month-old baby back home.
He arrived home Tuesday, empty-handed.
Holt, 47, had hoped to return with his son, Zachary, whom he said was illegally taken from his home Nov. 6 by the baby's mother, Jennifer Sargent. Court papers show Holt was granted sole custody of the child in Twelfth District Court in Skowhegan in November after Sargent failed to show for scheduled hearings.
Sargent, 21, was arrested Nov. 30 in Elizabethtown on a warrant after a nationwide teletype was broadcast by Maine State Police the same day. She is charged with criminal restraint by a parent, a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in the state prison.
Sargent allegedly took the baby, along with the child's birth certificate and Social Security card, when she left. Holt spent the next three weeks putting up missing-child posters.
State Police Trooper Bernard Brunette and Deputy Richard Putnam of the Somerset County Sheriff's Department left Wednesday by air to bring Sargent back to Maine to face charges. Sargent waived her right to fight her return to Maine. They are due back Friday. Sargent could be in court for arraignment by Monday.
The baby remains in Kentucky in the custody of social workers in Elizabethtown after a judge this week overruled the Maine custody order, Holt said.
He said he was called to court by Sargent's lawyer, but was not allowed to say anything. He said he was told the court appearance was a preliminary hearing to establish custody of Zachary.
Sargent was in court, but did not testify either, he said.
Telephone calls to Elizabethtown this week and last week revealed little on the status of the child. Officials would not comment on the case.
Police there said the case was out of their hands. A court clerk said she could not give out information, including the name of Sargent's lawyer, over the telephone and someone at social services in Elizabethtown would not discuss this case or any other case. "I was shocked the way we were treated," Eric Holt said Wednesday. "The baby's in Kentucky.
My brother got to see that baby for one hour in a smaller room than the baby's mother's jail cell."
Bruce Holt said he was told Sargent went from Georgia to Kentucky. Sargent has shaved her head since leaving Maine.
Police in Elizabethtown told The News-Enterprise newspaper that Sargent went to a domestic violence shelter in that city where she arrived. Holt said he was asked by social workers if he was a drug user and if he had abused Sargent.
He said he was not a drug user, nor had he ever hit Sargent.
"They had me take a urine test down there before I could see my son," he said. "They started asking if I was a heroin addict, if I smoked pot every day."
Holt said social services workers accused him of ripping Sargent's hair out in clumps, so badly that she had to shave her head.
He said the workers told him Sargent had bruises and red marks and that she had been told he was going to find her and kill her if he could.
"She got a call from church people in Maine saying that Bruce knows where you're at and is coming to kill you," Eric Holt said. "That was said right in court -- that he was going to kill her, but on Thanksgiving Day he was up here putting posters up."
Bruce Holt said he was not allowed to speak in court this week in Elizabethtown and was advised by the judge to get a lawyer before saying anything.
"They wouldn't let me talk, wouldn't let me say nothing," Holt said. "We spent six days total down there and $3,000 has been spent so far, now the state of Kentucky's got him."
Holt said it is as if the state of Kentucky has laws saying "fathers don't have babies." He said he met another man who has been fighting for custody for more than a year.
"There was one other guy who had been fighting for a year," he said. "The just wished me real good luck, they said, 'You're going to have your hands full.'"
Doug Harlow -- 861-9244
The judge in this case is REQUIRED to follow the Maine custody determination, by virtue of the Uniform Custody rules adopted by every state.
The father has demonstrated that he is innocent of the charges made by his wife - by virtue of taking (and I would assume) passing the drug test (she accused him of smoking pot and taking heroin) and accounting for his actions when he supposedly assaulted her.
The PD should have arrested her for "false swearing" related to the bogus protection-from-abuse order, and the judge should have followed the law.
But courts no longer deliver the law. Judges nowadays are incapable from deviating from the narrow political agenda foisted upon them by the liberals.
This man's is now in the middle of his worst nightmare, and soon his sense of fairness, justice and reality itself will be torn asunder.
Him now - who's next?
Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.
A 47yr old has a son by a 21 yr old woman. What's wrong with this picture?
And what has that got to do with anything? What's your point? Just because of an age difference, the man is somehow "guilty" of something?
Happens everday in Hollyweird and no outcry about it.
Yea, let's go take Hugh Heffner's kids away from him.
Hmmm... that's why I got a vasectomy.
I would WELCOME scrutinization of this case, if this is a bad man, then let's find out.
My sense is that this is a case of gross judicial abuse, though. This guy is getting shunted out of the way - told to get a lawyer who will likely stall and stall until he has no rights left. I have seen that play out SO MANY times I could puke.
I saw shine a light on this - what wrong with the judge? What's wrong with the cops? What is wrong with the local Domestic Violence group?
Look - how do you think the court system got as screwed up as it is, today? This is not "just" a nasty family case. This is not "just" a Father's Rights case.
I suspect that the people involved in this case in Kentucky are slugs that work best in the dark. Start shining a light around this case, and you will see slimy ugliness indeed.
Nope, not at all. But when you're pushing 50, and you knock up a know nothing 20 yr old, well, "you get what you pay for."
I dunno - tell me, what IS wrong with this picture. Please explain yourself.
Only one of many, many in Hollyweird.
Well, considering the trouble the old boy is going through, I'd advise better judgement in picking his sex partners.
I say let's find out - and let's find out NOW before this kid becomes too damaged by being caught in the middle of this process.
If she illegally took the baby across state lines, could the FBI be brought into case? Could a federal judge over-rule the local judge?
I never suggested the father was guilty of anything but bad judgement in picking a sex partner less than half his age.
I know it's legal, but I still don't think it's smart. Call me old fashioned.
Well, true, and I don't think it's so much picking a young partner, if both are competant and of legal age - but it's getting her pregnant. God bless them and the kid, but think about what you are doing, for goodness sake.
This is something every single guy who can't keep his pants zipped should be thinking about.
If it was my child and overcame the urge to kill all those people keeping my son away from, I would see a lawsuit over improper judicial conduct, slander, and anything else that a good lawyer could make stick.
No person is a better parent than other due to their sex. To assume so is liable slander and only a lawsuit will fix the issue.
It's complicated - in most cases the UCCJA is the rule which is a carbon-copy law adopted by all 50 states which recognizes which state has jurisdiction, and requires judges to defer to that state. In this case the jurisdiction is Maine, and Kentucy is required to give "full faith and credit" to the Maine custody determination.
Once custody has been determined, however, and that has been done here, the custodial parent has all primarly rights - thus, anyone else taking the child without the custodial parents permission is kidnapping that child.
When this is done by a non-custodial parent, this is called a "parental kidnapping". The FBI does enforce those cases.
Looking closely at this case, the mother is in custody, and will be returned to Maine, I see. The child, though, is in the hands of the state. The accusation of domestic violence, even if frivolous, has started a chain of events that can quickly spiral out of control. Dad is "guilty until *proven* innocent" now.
Well, we agree with you, but historically the courts don't.
E-town story ping.
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