Posted on 07/10/2015 9:12:57 PM PDT by Auntie Mame
PONTIAC, Mich. (CN) - After her decision to jail three children for being rude to their father ignited a media frenzy, a Michigan judge presiding over a bitter custody battle switched their punishment to summer camp Friday.
Insisting that she had the best interests of the Tsimhoni children, ages 14, 10 and 9, at heart, Judge Lisa Gorcyca said at a hearing Friday that her earlier order sentencing them to juvenile detention did not endanger them, the Detroit Free Press reported.
Gorcyca reportedly said the children were not housed with criminal offenders and that every alternative avenue presented to the court had been exhausted.
The Oakland County, Mich., judge had issued the headline-making sentence against the children just minutes into a June 25 contempt hearing she convened when the children defied her orders to spend quality time with their father.
"You are a defiant, contemptuous young man and I'm ordering you to spend the rest of the summer ... [in] Children's Village," Judge Lisa Gorcyca had told the 14-year-old.
A transcript of the hearing shows that the boy thought he was justified in ignoring Gorcyca's order because he thinks his father, General Motors engineer Omer Tsimhoni, is abusive.
"I saw him hit my mom and I'm not gonna talk to him," said the boy, who told the court he is 15 but is actually 14, according to court records.
That remark apparently enraged the judge.
"Your father has never been charged with anything, your father's never been convicted of anything," Gorcyca said, according to the transcript. "Your father doesn't have a personal protection order against him. ... You, young man, have got it wrong. I think your father is a great man who has gone through hoops for you to have a relationship with him."
Gorcyca held the Friday hearing after attorneys moved for her to reconsider the decision and release the children. Crediting the father's request, Gorcyca reportedly switched the children's punishment Friday from a detention center to summer camp.
At the June 25 hearing, an attorney for the mother emphasized that his client had encouraged her son to meet with the father. Gorcyca called this too little, too late, however, and implied that Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni has brainwashed the children.
"You need to do a research program on Charlie Manson and the cult that he has," the judge said. "Your behavior in the hall with me months ago, your behavior in this courtroom ... is unlike anything I've ever seen in any 46,000 cases."
With that, Gorcyca added that she would not let Eibschitz-Tsimhoni, an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Michigan, visit her child in detention.
As for the length of that detention, the judge warned that it could last into the fall or for years.
"We'll review it when school starts, and you may be going to school there," the judge said.
After questioning the teen's supposedly high IQ, Gorcyca told him "you may stay in there until you graduate from high school."
Gorcyca upbraided the younger children, ages 10 and 9, similarly after a short recess.
"I know you're kind of religious," the judge told the 9-year-old. "God gave you a brain. He expects you to use it. ... You are not your big, defiant brother who's living in jail. Do you want to live in jail? Just tell me this right now."
When the judge asked the child if she would have lunch with her father, the girl demurred by saying she would instead "go with my brother."
"You're not even going to be with your brother," the judge scoffed. "That's cool. You won't be in the same cell. I'll put in there 'Stay away from your brother.'"
Gorcyca concluded that "this is not normal behavior."
"Every single adult in this courtroom thinks you have been brainwashed," she added.
Throughout the hearing, the judge noted that the children's father objected to the sentence.
"I wanted to do this because of your horrific behavior a long time ago and your dad begged me not to," she said.
"You are so mentally messed up right now and it's not because of your father," Gorcyca added.
What you say here is what I think. The judge in this case has picked a battle she cannot win. You can't fight against psycho parents; you can only let time take care of the matter. The children will eventually, like your brother's children, figure it out themselves. Fighting it will only make it worse. The judge needs to be removed from family law cases. She must be a leftist. They're the only ones who think you can fight human nature and win.
sorry but in this particular case you are wrong..
the judge has seen this case for years, and has a better understanding of the circumstances surrounding it than you or I...
the children need to be deprogrammed... period...
the mother needs to be incarcerated ( but no elected judge will ever throw a mother in jail)..
I back this call based upon personal experience...
But, these days, the court's "concern for the well being of the children" is a bit off. Even if one parent is using drugs or hooking up with people at rest stops or physically abusing the other parent, the court will order visitation with that parent.
So, the judge's contention that the father is wonderful and the mother is evil really doesn't tell us much. Maybe the mother did brainwash the children, or maybe not.
Unfortunately, there are many fathers who've had the same experience. However, that doesn't mean that's what's happening in this case.
See my post #43 above.
Why did the Judge reverse her own ruling on the matter?
Her previous ruling was that the children would be detained in children's village until such time that they either talked to their father to his satisfaction or they turned 18.....
So why the sudden change in ruling?
CYA
My spider senses are screaming power tripping dad with a good lawyer and the Judges ear.
The whole thing stinks to high heaven...if the dad loves his kids so much why is he in Israel and not there seeing his kids every day as the Judge authorized.
Not a dude. I’m a “dudette.”
Yes, you make a good point.
I’m trying to look at this case objectively. Personally, all I can say about this case is that I don’t know what the truth is. Maybe he’s the one power-tripping, or maybe she’s been manipulative, or maybe something else is going on. I don’t know... but the children should never have been put into jail, and the judge should not have spoken to them the way she did in court.
Did I say that right?
(kidding)
“So, the judge’s contention that the father is wonderful and the mother is evil really doesn’t tell us much. Maybe the mother did brainwash the children, or maybe not.”
I think the judge is simply trying to enforce the family court’s value that children have a good relationship with each parent. She encountered stiff resistance from the mother to the point of the children refusing to eat lunch with him in the courthouse cafeteria. That’s a pretty strong indicator of tremendous alienation of affection i.e. brainwashing.
Here’s the recent court proceeding leading to the children being sent to summer camp by the court. The latter speaker is the children’s advocate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=LB9IBcCLGKs
What I find most disturbing about this entire incident is so-called conservatives knee-jerk advocacy of mass media, msm and popular culture’s vilification of men in general and fathers in particular.
Apology accepted. LOL.
Possibly. Or maybe the father is the one with issues, and the children are reacting to that. We just don't know.
I noticed that, in stories about divorce cases, many people here assume the mother must be evil and the father an innocent victim.
Just because a father accuses a mother of alienating the children from him doesn't mean that's the case. Even if everyone in the entire court system is on his side, that still doesn't mean the mother truly is doing what they all claim. Maybe she is, or maybe she isn't.
I'm withholding any opinion, except my opinion that the judge shouldn't have spoken that way to those children or sent them to a detention center.
So called conservatives?
So anyone who isnt seeing this the same you do isnt a conservative?
What the hell?
The childs advocate even mentions that 6 deputies couldnt INTIMIDATE the children into talking even though they had guns....or did you not hear that part?
And where is the rest of the hearing?
Who is Dave W and how did he obtain this footage?
Will the rest of the Video record also be released?
And since I’m a divorced father of three......you can shove the vilification charge...I told you...the actions of the father also ring some alarm bells...why is he STILL in Israel?
He is acting like this is a fight over community property rather than his children....and if the mother fears the husband taking the kids away...it looks like those fears are well founded....as that is exactly what the fathers lawyer has filed for...full custody.
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