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
Call me sexist, call me a cave man, call me old fashioned.
But my opinion will always be not to date, have sex with, nor get pregnant any woman that is half my age. I'm not saying this guy deserves what is going on with his child, far from it. But I think he could have used better judgment in picking his sex partner.
I guess you wouldn't have a problem with your daughter getting pregnant by a man more than twice her age.
Yup, the courts have always been against you as a man. In divorce, abortion, custody, you name it. Your only defense, until things hopefully change, is to be smarter about who you wish to have a child with.
You have to keep control of your pickle for risk of the 'Pickle' you might be put in....
I have not followed the news recently. My father-in-law passed away this past week so we have been a tad busy. I might post his obit as a seperate thread here on FR. It was in the News Enterprise today.
My condolences. He was retired military, as I remember. You should do that.
I've now gone off, found it, and read it, and you certainly should.
Link please?
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