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Contempt of Court?

foreveretc's picture

Submitted by foreveretc on Tue, 01/10/2012 - 12:20am

Forums: 
Family Court

hello! I just found this forum and could not have came across it at a better time!!

We are in the middle of a custody battle for my DH's 2 kids, 7 and 5 years of age...

The short version is we go to court, she (BM) claims she didnt have time to hire an attorney etc so the hearing was continued to another time. The judge appointed a Guardian Ad Litem to the case and both sides were required to pay a $600 deposit. Well, we scraped our share together, and she still has not paid. she had until November 7th to pay, and nothing! Now our lawyer is going to file a motion with the court to have her held in contempt of court because the Guardian will not begin to work on the case until both sides pay. Its been 3 months now since our court date and we are so anxious!

My question is, what will happen when he files the motion? Will it basically just bully her into paying the $600? We wont even have a court date until the guardian starts working on the case, so you can understand our frustration! its like shes just trying to delay the case, for obvious reasons... I really have no idea what to expect and didnt get a chance to discuss it much with our attorney.

So, what should we expect to happen? from what ive read online, not much will happen. Sad
Thanks!

my.kids.mom's picture

Submitted by my.kids.mom on Tue, 01/10/2012 - 12:27am

Yeah the court system SUCKS. Expect this to drag out for over a year. Probably nothing will happen, and she probably is doing it on purpose to delay everything. I wish I had advice, but that's all I got LOL

foreveretc's picture

Submitted by foreveretc on Tue, 01/10/2012 - 12:36am

Its so frustrating! and there has been abuse in the household and violence, not to our children physically but plenty of mental/emotional abuse.. and physical to her and the youngest child (2 y/o, different dad) and the other dad has his final court hearing the 17th...the GAL on their case is recommending the father have custody... its an unsafe enviroment for the kids to be in. Also, the judge refused to hear ANY of our case/evidence/concerns when we were in court because he wanted to be 'fair' and let her hire an attorney before things started. ugh! im just frustated I guess, and needed to vent more than anything :lol

skylarksms's picture

Submitted by skylarksms on Tue, 01/10/2012 - 8:02am

Exactly. PB (our BM) got Contempt of Court for Willful Interference with Visitation. A charge of $500 for 2 PAGES of missed visitations (one line for each occurence).

Of course, nobody held a gun to her head to make her pay it. DH ended up just taking the $500 off the mountains of medical bills she would send to us for all the made-up skid illnesses she loved to take them into the doctor for.

Courts and court orders are a joke because they have no way of enforcing them. Or maybe it is that they CHOOSE NOT to enforce things upon the Golden Uteri.

RaeRae's picture

Submitted by RaeRae on Tue, 01/10/2012 - 8:29am

If they don't pay contempt fees, they can face jail time. Of course, it depends on your judge.

Also, why isn't she going pro se, which is what people do when they can't afford an attorney??

foreveretc's picture

Submitted by foreveretc on Tue, 01/10/2012 - 2:30pm

Well, i had a long reply here but I am editting it because I dont want the details to some how cause trouble for us later. Wink

FreedomHaawk's picture

Submitted by FreedomHaawk on Thu, 01/12/2012 - 11:29pm

First thing to do get rid of your lawyer. Lawyers serve no purpose in the family court system.