How quickly can I enroll, attend, and graduate from law school?

This is an email from a friend of mine who, as you'll see, is up against the wall, literally. I apologize for the length, but it's important that all the info gets out there as quickly as possible.

If anyone reading this might be able to offer any legal assistance, please let me know ASAP.

Names have been X'ed out just cuz I don't wanna get in hot water either.

Paul/Paula,

This is the information for my cases. I sent this to Joan Foster, Lynchburgs mayor. She spoke at the UU church two weeks ago and expressed an interest in hearing my situation since she is the head of the Alliance for Families and Children. Paul, I know you mentioned getting this on Fark, but I don't know how to do that. So you can get this out to as many organizations that could possibly help as you can think of. I also sent this to the Department of SS in Richmond per the letter of response I received from Washington.

Paula, I tried to contact you last night. Would you please light a candle for my Ma-maw. They are pulling the plug on her today. She never got to meet Aiden. You would have loved her. She is such a loving, generous person.

Anyone you guys think can use this just forward it and then let me know who you sent it to. I have court on Wednesday here in Lunchbag for Bess and Gene. Once again during the waning moon. There has got to be a way to make this go in my favor for a change.

Here is the info:

May 7, 2007

I was given this contact information from the Associate Commissioner of the Children's Bureau for the Administration for Children and Families, Susan Orr. I had sent a letter to our first lady, Laura Bush about this circumstance and she referred it to their office. Please review the case below and let me know if there is anything you can do to assist me. I am also including copies of the complaint letters that I have sent that have better detail of the behavior issues of the Guardian Ad litems.

I am not a lawyer so I can only base things on what the general public has access to as far as resources.

I was born in Texas. My first marriage to M was in the state of Virginia in 1995. My oldest two children, Elizabeth and Eugene, were born in Texas 1996/1997. M joined the army in 1997. The home of record was Texas. I left him June of 1998 after an incident where he punched me in the back at a Dollar store in Watertown, NY where he was stationed. I was not about to stay with a man who could do that to his wife in a public place while she pushed their kids in a double stroller. In 1999 I was awarded custody of my children officially. I went over a year without child support because he kept claiming that he would send what he could. I eventually had to get child support awarded because I had fA behind so badly in bills. In 2001 he joined the Va National Guard for a year. In 2002 due to my own ignorance and naivete I was forced to hand custody of them to their father in Virginia. I found myself in much the same predicament I am in now, jobless and homeless. In 2003 our divorce was finalized. He managed to slip an amount for child support in the divorce papers without my knowledge. I was never given any copies nor is my signature on them. M has never lived on his own. He went from living with his parents to living with me where I took care of him to having the military take care of him to living back with his parents. He is now looking to remarry in June. I fear for the wellbeing of that woman and her two children. It's disturbing.

I worked hard over the next year to get myself together so I could fight for them back. I worried constantly and did not have any set visitation organized. I did the best I could. In 2003 I started a good job and found out that I was pregnant with my third child, Aiden.

In 2004 Aiden was born April 2 in Virginia. In June I married his father, A. In August of 2004 he began to have sexual intercourse with J who at that time had just married Neal Moore. I found out about it in November of 2004. At the same time A confirmed the affair with J, he also told me about the men he had been sleeping with as well. A put me, Aiden, Bess and Gene through a revolving door of hell for the next two years. One minute he wanted to work things out, the next we were scum and would post it on the internet. He walked out on me and the baby over 6 times in 3 months. He stayed away for months at time without any support for Aiden, none for me and no contact or visitation. May of 2005 I was awarded custody of the baby in Halifax County due to A's adultery, abandonment and instability both personally and financially. The courts banned J from coming anywhere near Aiden for 6 months. Also they stated that no one of the opposite sex was to be in the home after 11:00pm when Aiden was there. Neither parent was to expose the baby to any lewd or lascivious behavior. He didn't start paying any sort of child support until the end of September of 2005. A moved in with J, who had by now divorced her husband, January of 2006 without notifying anyone he had relocated. From January of 2006 until he stopped coming to get Aiden on March 11th, he had been taking Aiden to J's apartment to spend the weekends. Once again without notifying the courts that he even lived there. His name is not on the lease. He has openly admitted to being intimate and sharing a bed with her in both Halifax and Appomattox courts. J has posted on the internet that she wants to kill herself. She also was seeing a psychiatrist in Charlottesville that whole year. She entered in that she had better things to do than spend her money on little white pills and stopped seeing him.

I had been working for the same company for over 2.5 years and lived in a nice home for over a year. I had moved to Concord in order to be closer to my job in Appomattox. Until recently every move I had made had been to better our circumstances. I filed for custody of Elizabeth and Eugene in May of 2006. Two weeks later I received multiple letters from DCSE demanding 7000 in back child support for M. I was floored. In over 3 years I had not been notified of anything. I put insurance on the children and had given M the insurance cards. I even referenced it as what I could do to help support the kids. I sent multiple letters to DCSE reciting their own rules and guidelines where it stated that in the instance where a parent places insurance on the children it can be considered as child support. They refused to acknowledge this and began yanking money out of an already tight paycheck. No hearing, no court order. They forwarded me a copy of the divorce papers saying that that was what they based it on. In all that time M had not said a word. DCSE never asked me for any money. Now all of sudden I owed 7000 to him. I had been working with USDA to get a loan to buy a house in the area. Thus having a permanent residence. They dropped the loan as soon as they saw the debt that DCSE had placed on my credit. They had placed it even though I was still disputing the case and a final decision had not been made.

In August of 2006 my landlady called me at the end of the month to say that my rent check had bounced and she needed the money right away. Thinking that it had cleared I had to go back and check the bank records and my records. By the first week of September I was considered two months behind. My rent was 700 a month. Until M began to take money out of my paychecks I had been able to pay this, though it was tight each month. I made too much money to get any assistance, so I was on my own. On September 9th, the landlady let herself into the residence without any prior notification. My 2 year old had just gone on a rampage and destroyed the house. The toilet was stopped up from the package of wipes he had flushed down it, there were dishes from my daughters party the previous weekend that I was still working on completing, laundry to do and Aiden had dumped over the trashcan onto the floor. I made the choice to clean him up first. We were in the back bathroom with the door shut. I always locked up the doors and let the dogs in when I was in that back bathroom due to the fact that when I was in there I couldn't hear anything in the rest of the house. I had the baby in the shower and did not hear her let herself in. According to the landlord/tenet act she has to give me 24 hours notice before entering the premises on her own. She had violated that. It wasn't until I had dried the baby, redressed him and began to clean up the mess he had made that I noticed the door wasn't locked anymore. She, the landlady, went to Appomattox Social Services the next morning and filed a complaint of neglect on me. She then notified A and began to circulate pictures to him, Social Services and later to the GAL that she had illegally taken while in the home. Social Services dismissed the complaint and closed the case in October but the damage had been done. After 8 months of not coming by to even see his son, A filed for custody siting neglect and the best interests of Aiden. He tried to state that he had been emailing me and calling me to see the baby, but I had received none of this. A works with computers. He is a hacker. He knows how to manipulate email and websites to say and do what he wants. Regardless if he had been, he had never shown up at the drop off location nor at the house to pick the baby up and I had had witnesses prepared to testify to that.

The landlady had been caught up on the rent because I had dipped into my retirement to pay her up. I had paid Octobers rent. She left a note on the door stating that she wanted me to move out in 30 days. I spoke to Social Services and they said that it wasn't an eviction notice and until she went to court that there was nothing she could do to enforce it. Especially if she had accepted money from me.

I submitted multiple motions to dismiss the suit A had submitted due to the evidence that the landlady was offering was tainted. She had violated the law to obtain it thus rendering anything she said or provided inadmissable. The judge stated that the landlord/tenet act only applied to state officials. This was in direct conflict with what the Office of Consumer Affairs stated. They are the ones that oversea this act.

October 2006 I lost my job due to outsourcing. I went immediately to get assistance from the state and to file for unemployment. I got both. After almost a month of no job offers and the landlady once again on my case for rent, I spoke to my mother in Texas about my situation looking for advice. She offered for the kids and I to come and live with her and my stepfather in their home in Texas. I would help with the family business and go back to school and finish my degree. I thought about the offer for almost 3 weeks. I then decided to accept since there was nothing here.

My mother is a medical professional and my step-father is a police chief in Emory, Texas. In Texas I have the support of an extensive family, the crime rate is lower, the education system ranks higher than this area, I am not committing adultery, I am not bi-sexual, per the mental assessment I voluntarily had done I am NOT crazy, the job I have waiting is with the family business and the hours will be flexible, and the residence is my mother and step-father's and is paid off. Both my son and I would have our own rooms, he would have 7 3/4 acres to play on. I am not a smoker nor is any member of my family. (my son has a small heart murmur he has had since he was born and I am trying to give him as healthy of an environment as possible) Nearly the entirety of my family has graduated high school and some sort of secondary schooling program and have professional positions and strong work ethics. They are well known and respected in their communities.

I have been upfront with the courts in the fact that I want to relocate back to my homestate of Texas. I notified the courts the beginning of December of my intention to relocate to Texas with my son, Aiden. My plans were to come back the end of January for the hearing for Elizabeth and Eugene. I could submit all the evidence I had from down there and hopefully be taken seriously.

I had met with Aiden's GAL, B, in October. I came away from that meeting with his assurances that he didn't see a need to remove Aiden from me. By the beginning of November, however, he had changed his tune. The only thing that had changed was that he had spoken to A. A accused me of denying him all visitation with Aiden enough to where Mr. B began threatening me with the case going badly if I did not allow A to see the baby. I tried again to show my proof that A had not bothered to come and see Aiden. Mr. B refused to return my calls. I went to his office and furnished names and numbers to people that were witnesses to A's behavior and to his not showing up. They were never contacted. In November Mr. B ordered me to turn Aiden over to A for the weekend in front of Ms home. I waited out front of the house for Elizabeth and Eugene to come out so they could see their baby brother before he left. A began harassing me, cursing at me and making threats. When I reported this behavior to the GAL, he never called me back. M refused to let the kids come out until A was gone. Finally they came out and got to say goodbye to Aiden. I spent the next 5 minutes going over everything that A needed to know for Aiden. He just walked away.

Now A is a sweet talker. He can convince anyone of anything if given enough of a chance. That's how he manipulated me for so long.

December 19, 2006 Appomattox took custody away from me because I was unemployed in Virginia, was having to relocate and because I am not christian. I want to move to Texas where my family is and the GAL is 100% on A's side (because he doesn't approve of my religion). I am Druid. B's actual statement was 'I have a real problem with her whole nature based religion thing'. After jumping his religious preferences (including participating in mine) for several years A now claims to be a born-again christian. If you knew him you would know how hypocritical that is. I wanted to take my children with me to Texas. The judge stated that since the 30 day notification time limit had not been fulfilled at the time of the hearing, that I could not take my son with me but that I was welcome to move down there until the hearing in March to decide the final outcome. I was to get every other weekend and one night per week of visitation but the court order only stated reasonable visitation.


They gave him to his father who is illegally cohabitating with the woman he is still committing adultery with. The cohabitation is a class 3 misdemeanor and the adultery is class 4. Yet the courts still think an adulterer whose sister does phone-sex for money in the home (and who happens to be the caregiver for my baby) and his mother was convicted of assault and battery is more stable.

My husband is denying any contact with my son, he has refused for my family to have contact with my son, he is actively cohabitating with a woman he is conducting an affair with, his family has a prolific history of mental disorder and the necessity of taking drugs for it, he has had 6 jobs in 3 years, he lives in a 2 bedroom apartment with no yard or outside area for the baby to play in, the girlfriend in the apartment has had multiple abortions and does not want children, he is a pack to 2 pack a day smoker as is she, he is verbally emotionally psychologically and mentally abusive and he has left the baby with his sister, for daycare, who does phone sex for money and leaves the children with her legally blind boyfriend. The majority of his family had barely high school graduation under their belts and only one has anything beyond a high school diploma. My husband is a deserter of the Air Force and has abandoned both me and his son several times for this woman.

In his favor is the fact that I lost my job after 3 years with the same company, the residence I live in is not my own home (I am serving as a live in nanny for a friend who just lost his wife to breast cancer (I knew the family for 5 years)),
Until December I was the sole caregiver and provider for my baby his entire life. It has been excruciatingly painful not to see him or hold him for such a long period of time. Before my husband got custody he hadn't bothered to show up for scheduled visitation on a regular basis for over 8 1/2 months.

B has firmly taken my husbands side in this matter. He has not done a home visit with me at my new location (which is in Virginia still), he will not return my calls and has sent out a letter stating that it is his recommendation that all visitation between me and my son should be supervised by my husband due to the issue of my residential status. None of that had been backed up with a court order until recently.

In January of 2007, I was supposed to get normal every other weekend visitations. My husband refused to allow me to see my son nor even know where he is for the whole month siting that he has permission from the GAL to do so. Mr. B never sent anything to the courts or to me. I tried to contact him on several occassions to no avail. In February Mr. B said that it was his recommendation that I not be allowed to see Aiden at all due to 'concerns' that he and social services had that he needed to verify with a home visit. He never stated what the concerns were, and nothing was mentioned by the judge. Nor was anything stated in writing. Now the GAL is trying to get social services breathing down my back about these bogus 'concerns' that no one will list. There was supposed to be a home study done on where I currently live. Only every time I try to set up an appointment the GAL is too busy. Then he will try and just show up out of the blue with the social worker in tow. Since the homeowner has requested to be present when the study is done because his children are in the home I can't just let the GAL in with no notice. I have explained this repeatedly to his office and they have agreed with me each time. But he won't commit to making an appointment. The GAL told the judge in court that he would make an appointment but then when I actually get a time from the GAL's secretary, he doesn't bother to show. When my husband was questioned as to whether the GAL had done this to him the response was no.

Then on April 12th, the GAL submitted paperwork to completely deny me all visitation since I would not cooperate with him to do a home visit and said that he had tried to reach me several times a week ever since February. I showed the courts the phone records where he had NOT tried to call but showed that I had tried to call him multiple times. The judge granted the Mr. B's motion and made it a permanent order until Mr. B can inspect the premises with Amy Witt from Lynchburg Social Services. I asked what the just cause for this was as there was no evidence that anything was wrong. The judge stated that he didn't know if my home was dangerous so he could not in good consience let Aiden go there. To this day Mr. B has still not appeared for a home visit.

I have filed an appeal with Circuit Court in Appomattox for this case. The GAL has already been caught in several falsehoods but the judge won't dismiss him even though I have formally asked for his dismissal due to deriliction of duty and prejudice. The judge said he didn't see where Mr. B has done anything wrong. I have filed complaints with the presiding judge, the chief judge, the bar association, the ACLU for the religion comments and the director of social services. So far no one will do anything but ignore me. In the meantime my son doesn't get to see his mother and is being taught to call the woman my husband is shacked up with 'momma'.


To back up a little, on January 26th I was in Lynchburg J& D to try and go for custody of my older two children. I knew it was a long shot at this point thanks to the multiple dely tactics that M's lawyer, H, had used to keep the case from being heard in a prompt manner. But I was definitely not expecting what happened. The Social Worker, W testified that I was psychologically harming my children by exposing them to my beliefs which the children did not feel comfortable with. On the contrary, my children are aware that they do not have to participate in any Druid activities if they do not want to. When I was planning on having a spring equinox observence in the back yard, I gave the children the choice of being a part of it during their visitation time or waiting until after they had left. They got furious with me and demanded that I have it while they were here. W also tried to state that the environment I had was not ideally suited even though she had not seen my home where I reside currently at that time. She then said that I was manipulating my daughter by telling her everything that was going on with all the courts. This was a lie. I tried to point out to her the flaws in her logic, but she got very nasty with me on the witness stand and told the judge that I shouldn't be allowed around my children at all. She had no grounds for this. I pointed out that I had tried on several occassions to speak with her in her office and she was never available. She had no response to this.

The judge awarded sole custody and sole decision making to M. I can only see them on Saturday afternoons from 12 until 8. I used to get them every weekend, Thursday nights, several weeks in the summer, christmas and spring break. Now my kids can't even spend the night with me. I am not allowed to discuss anything with the kids even if they ask me questions. I am to refer all of this to the Guardian ad litem for them to deal with. Now he has enrolled in them in extra curricular activities that take place on Saturdays. I can either take them and watch them from afar or not take them and be an ogre for not supporting my kids in their games. The judge even went so far as to refuse to allow Bess and Gene to attend the funeral of a wonderful woman that they knew and loved because it was a pagan ceremony. It was held at the UU church. Bess was friends with the oldest little girl, Regina. Regina could have really used her friend that day and because of the bigotry of M, W and the courts, she couldn't have it.

My daughter, Elizabeth will be 11 on the 9th of this month. She is extraordinarily intellegent. She has asked me on multiple occassions what is going on. I have repeatedly told her that I cannot discuss it. She starts crying and says that she just wants to be with me and move away. I have tried really hard not to let them know anything that has to do with the cases. They are not stupid kids. They can read, they can listen. Who is to say that they haven't heard their dad talking to their grandparents (he lives with them) or read notes left out. The oldest girl that I take care of is Elizabeth's friend. She may have heard me discussing the situation with her grandparents or her father and related the information to Elizabeth. I remember being that age. Not knowing what was going on around me was very disturbing.

Elizabeth and Eugene's new GAL, T, and W finally made a visit to the home on Friday. W was very rude and negative. She also began grilling me on my finances and those of the homeowners yet again. The homeowner is out on a deployment with his employer, Areva. He specifically requested that no one go into his bedroom. His recently deceased wife's things are still in the bedroom and he didn't want anyone going through his personal effects. Perfectly understandable. Yet T and W both got very hostile when I would not allow them in the room. They said the homeowner was being unreasonable and that if it was them they would gladly allow people into their bedrooms. I had someone in the house to bear witness to that conversation.

Both W and B have made several disparaging remarks about my religion. This is unacceptable. And a direct violation of my constitutional rights.

All my children want to be with me and my oldest two are adamant about wanting to return to Texas. Do not misunderstand me, I know that my children love their father. I don't see anything wrong with them loving him. I have remained in Virginia thus far for my children. Even to my own detriment. I am still on unemployment, but I am serving as a part time nanny for a friend for room and board. I don't have any money and now Appomattox has awarded child support to A from me and placed me in arrearage of 1000. DCSE stopped the child support that A was paying without a court order.

My daughter informed me last week that she was afraid of her father. I thought she was kidding, so I asked her why. She said that when he gets mad he throws things, yells really loud and shakes his hands at them. I asked her if that was all and she said no. She said that when she was in 1st grade her dad had gotten mad at her and her brother and threw her across the room in a chair. Appalled, I asked her if he had ever done anything like that since. She said no, but that she was afraid he would. The next morning I telephoned Elizabeth's counselor with Wishing Well Counseling and informed her of what Elizabeth had said and expressed a deep concern. That evening I telephone the CPS hotline and filed an anonymous complaint. I asked Elizabeth that Saturday if she had had a chance to talk to her counselor. She said yes, and that the counselor had said that it didn't sound like her dad and that she, Bess, had probably misinterpreted something. Elizabeth knows why I left her father. She specifically asked me about when her dad had hit me. I didn't give her exact details because I didn't want to cause her any distress. She is in counseling because she is having more and more emotional outbursts. She goes from being sweet and helpful to being physically abusive to her brother and sometimes even her friends. She will call me up occassionally and in the smallest little girl voice start crying and ask me when she can come to live with me, can I come and get her? This breaks my heart and worries me to death. This past Saturday I did not take Gene to his baseball game. It fell within my visitation and dangit, I wanted to actually spend the time with him rather than sitting in bleachers not even able to hug him. Gene repeatedly stated that he didn't want to go back to his dad because he was afraid. I asked him why? He stated that his dad was going to get mad at him for not going to the ballgame and start yelling. Gene said he didn't want to go, he almost started crying several times and just kept repeating that he didn't want to go back. This isn't normal. I am truly worried about the safety of all three of my children. I don't know what to do.

I have received paperwork today where H is trying to get me to pay his fees, a show cause placed against me citing that I disobeyed the court order and have continued to talk to Bess and Gene about what is going on, to impose sanctions on me and to dismiss the Motion to Amend I filed. Not being a lawyer, I am not sure what I can and cannot do. I didn't have the money to file an appeal in January. The court clerk told me that I could file a motion to amend instead. I did so knowing that I would have the job offer from my mother in writing. I was also counting on her getting a home study done on her home down in Texas to submit to the courts. I got the job offer, but she wasn't able to arrange the home study. I also have a month to month lease to submit showing that I have a residence. A fact that they said I didn't have at the January hearing. All of these are changes. That should qualify for a motion to amend.

M hired H and as I have been notified on multiple occassion, we are not entitled to have representation appointed to us in Juvenile court unless it is a criminal matter. Therefore requiring me to pay his fees is ridiculous. If M cannot afford H then he shouldn't have him represent him in court.

I have a hearing on Wednesday of this week at 9:40 in Lynchburg for Elizabeth and Eugene.

Legal Aid is not taking any more cases right now due to client overload. Retainers in this area are a minimum of $2000 but usually run around $2500 before a lawyer will even consider taking your case. No one will do pro-bono unless legal aid specifically assigns it. The couple of lawyers I have conferenced with say that no one will touch it because of the religion issue.

This is a travesty of justice. My oldest two live in fear of their father, my baby is denied the only parent who never abandoned him and is stuck with psychopaths. I have written everyone I can think of. ACLU, Director of Social Services, VA state bar, Laura Bush, and now you. I am desperate. My babies are suffering and the courts refuse to recognize it. Instead blame me for it.

All I want it is to get them safely back to Texas where they will have lots of love and no fears. At least abnormal ones. This religious discrimination has to STOP. I found out yesterday that my great-grandmother is dying. They are pulling the plugs on her today. She never got to meet the baby and the older children barely remember her. My grandparents aren't getting any younger. I want them to get to know them and for my family to know the joy and happiness that are my children as well.

Please, if there is anything, ANYTHING, that you can do to help us; our gratitude would know no bounds. All parties now live in Lynchburg. Please help us. This can't go on.

Sincerely,

'Anna'

The "show cause" hearing is August 1, and it was hinted at yesterday that Anna was probably going to be tossed in jail at that time. The next hearing for Aiden is June 6. That gives me just under a month.