She Said Her Husband Was Abusive. A Judge Took Away Her Kids & Ordered Her Arrest: ProPublica

[appalachiablue]

- Julie Valadez in front of the Waukesha County Courthouse, Wisconsin.

- ProPublica, Feb. 22, '22. 'She Said Her Husband Was Abusive. A Judge Took Away Her Kids and Ordered Her Arrest.' Ed. The judge in Julie Valadez’s custody case found her disruptive, questioned her credibility & put out a warrant for her arrest. A rare appellate victory is now giving her case a fresh look, but Valadez still is fighting for her 4 children.

After the judge in her Wisconsin divorce case ruled that her ex-husband- a man who had sought treatment for anger and alcohol issues- would get legal custody of and equal time with their four children, Julie Valadez vowed to fight back. But in every key ruling that followed, the Waukesha County Circuit Court judge overseeing her case, Michael J. Aprahamian, found Valadez’s concerns about her ex-husband not credible and her actions unacceptable. Aprahamian took away her ability to co-parent her children. He held her in contempt four times. And after Aprahamian ordered her arrest, she braced herself for jail.

Valadez, whose accusations of domestic abuse had led to her husband’s arrest, ran through a string of attorneys and represented herself at times. Eventually she found a Milwaukee civil rights attorney to represent her, along with a public defender, and enlisted the help of a Washington, D.C., legal service for domestic violence survivors. And in recent weeks, with a pair of rare appeals court victories and Aprahamian’s decision to remove himself from the case, Valadez has found reason to hope that better days are ahead for her and her children.

Appellate reversals in these kinds of cases are unusual, in part because of the time and money it takes to pursue them. Valadez’s case provides a window into the largely unexplored world of family court, the appeals process and the problems encountered by women who say they’ve been victims of domestic abuse. A common concern in these situations is that family courts will favor shared custody even if one parent says the other is abusive, sometimes misapplying the law and forcing long, expensive legal battles. ProPublica reported in September on another woman’s lengthy family court ordeal, which also took place in Wisconsin’s Waukesha County, but before a different judge.

That story explored how Wisconsin courts, in working to give fathers equal parenting rights, often fail to deal with the complexities that arise in these cases and downplay women’s concerns about their own safety and that of their children. State systems, according to women’s advocates, often put mothers who survived domestic violence at a disadvantage, liable to be seen as noncooperative when the court seeks some sort of compromise. Valadez, believing that her case was being mishandled, went to great lengths to be heard while also fending off accusations that she was unruly or was somehow failing to do what’s best for her children...


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https://www.propublica.org/article/she-said-her-husband-was-abusive-a-judge-took-away-her-kids-and-ordered-her-arrest

[JoeOtterbein]

1. I personally know an ex who kept the baby...

...away from the other for years.

It's the worst thing a parent can do to another parent.

Thanks for posting.

(tears)

[2naSalit]

2. Messed up...

Wisconsin seems to have slid backward several decades.

[appalachiablue]

3. Definitely, a serious change for the worse in Wisc. and

very different from what I remember.

[Ziggysmom]

4. Waukesha is red repug hell now. Full of rumpy lovers and Q cultists with their heads up

their asses. Gerrymandering destroyed much of Wisconsin, reps like Robin Vos are evidence of that.

[ZellyCabMem]

6. I Have Been in This Field for 20 Years

Before trump, I had no idea my faith in humanity could be more shaken than it has been by the behavior of opposing parties and some of my own clients. I am still hoping this is the bottom.

[gopiscrap]

7. this sucks

I feel bad for her