Little Girl Recovered and Reunited with Dad After Long Separation

By Laura Reichel

A distraught dad desperately needed help— he had no idea where his little girl was and feared for her safety. The Law Offices of Jeffery M. Leving Ltd. worked tirelessly to locate dad’s daughter. After a long and painful separation, they located her and reunited them.

Chicago-based matrimonial attorney Jeffery Leving, President of the Law Offices of Jeffery M. Leving Ltd. will talk about this important case victory and more on the Dads’ Rights Legal Hour, 9-10 a.m. CDT Saturday, October 25^th on Power 92.3 FM.

This show segment will be available for download on the Dads’ Rights Legal Hour Spotify page on dadsrights.com.

Listen to this radio show and keep hope alive by sharing this victory and connecting on Instagram @dadsrights.

The Leving legal team had previously represented this dad in a parentage case and secured joint custody of his daughter and nearly 50% parenting time for him. However, dad came back and reported that his daughter’s mother rarely complied with the court order and eventually cut dad off from his daughter. Dad had not seen his daughter in a long time and had lost all hope of ever seeing her again. She was gone. But, dad didn’t want to lose his daughter.

Attorney Jeffery Leving and his team designed a brilliant legal strategy to find and recover the little girl and reunite her with her father.

They immediately filed a Petition seeking to enforce the court order providing dad parenting time. They fought tirelessly and won in court, securing a court order requiring the mother to comply with dad’s parenting time. However, it was reported that soon after court, the mother took the child out of school, kidnapped her, and fled Illinois to an unknown location. The Leving legal team also learned that the mother had a live-in boyfriend; the Leving team’s private detective investigated and reported that the mother’s boyfriend had an extensive criminal history. Dad feared that his daughter might be abused by the mother’s boyfriend.

After learning that the mother had fled, the Leving legal team quickly filed a Petition for an Emergency Order of Protection primarily based on the mother’s alleged concealment of the little girl. They presented their arguments to the court, and the judge granted the Emergency Order of Protection. They also secured a body attachment for the mother’s failure to appear in court, which authorized law enforcement to take the mother into custody, and to bring her before the court in the continued pursuit of locating her.

It was feared that the mother went underground with the child. The private investigator located them in Oregon. Initially, law enforcement officers doubted the validity of the address uncovered, but persistence proved the private investigator to be correct. The Leving legal team worked closely with local law enforcement to serve the mother with Illinois court orders requiring the immediate turnover of the little girl to her father. A specialized child rescue team was assembled and successfully served the orders, executed the warrant, and recovered the little girl. Dad was finally reunited with his daughter after years of separation.

This was an important victory modified for publication for both dad and his daughter. Against all odds, the Leving legal team located dad’s daughter in another state, coordinated the process of having Illinois court orders recognized by a foreign jurisdiction, worked with out-of-state law enforcement officers to ensure that the mother was served with the Illinois orders, and effectuated turnover of a reported parentally kidnapped child to dad. This complex, multi-state effort demonstrated the Leving team’s strength and persistence in enforcing Illinois court orders across jurisdictions, protecting the father-daughter bond against all odds.

Matrimonial attorney Jeffery M. Leving is the recipient of the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award from the President of the United States in recognition of 7,500 hours of service to this nation. In addition, the Illinois House of Representatives has honored Leving “for his work in safeguarding the rights of fathers and protecting the welfare of children and families in this State,” and the Illinois Senate issued a proclamation recognizing his efforts on behalf of fathers.

To learn more about Leving, law and fatherhood, visit dadsrights.com.

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Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award-winning opinion columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

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Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

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