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Missing boy found by dad hundreds of miles from home
A desperate dad was in a panic because he didn’t know where his son was. Dad was terrified that he would never see his son again. He said he was told that the boy’s mother had absconded with his son, whisked him out of Illinois, and took him to an unknown location where the mother was living with her boyfriend who had reportedly been abusive to her. Dad was horrified that his son might be being abused by the mother’s boyfriend.
Dad retained the Law Offices of Jeffery M. Leving Ltd. to find his missing son and bring him back home to dad. Leving will talk about this compelling case on the Dads Rights Legal Hour, 9-10 a.m. CDT Saturday, October 30, on Power 92.3 FM.
According to dad’s attorney, Jeffery M. Leving, the first and very significant hurdle in the case was locating the mother’s whereabouts. Next, she had to be properly served with notice of the court proceedings necessary to reunite the boy with his dad.
It was believed that a third party was hiding the mother and the child in another state. To assist Leving in finding the child he utilized a detective whose investigative work, Leving said, was critical in overcoming this hurdle.
The mother wasn’t easy to find but due to the detective’s persistence, she was finally found with the child, hundreds of miles away in Texas. The detective then worked in coordination with local law enforcement and had her served with the court documents Leving had filed in Illinois.
But the fight wasn’t over yet, it just started. Despite being served with process, the mother reportedly refused to return the child to Illinois, and aggressively fought the father’s Motion for Return of the Child to dad. According to court records, she also failed to comply with investigative discovery requests. In the face of what appeared to Leving to be the “mother’s legal stonewalling,” the court ordered the mother’s compliance with the important discovery requests over her objections.
Finally, the judge held a contested hearing on whether the child should stay in Texas or be returned home to dad in Illinois. Though it was a tough hearing, dad’s counsel strategically presented witnesses and other evidence supporting the father’s position. Despite the mother’s reported tactics of concealment and delay, and after a very long period of active litigation, the court ruled in dad’s favor, granting his motion and ordering the child to be returned to dad in Illinois. This was a hard fought, lifesaving victory.
Leving said: “This was an important victory, modified for broadcast; against all odds, we found dad’s son and secured an order to bring his son back home to him. If dad had not come to us, it is very likely he would never have seen his son again.” The mother reportedly had successfully concealed the child in a distant state for some time before Leving was retained to represent dad.
This dad is thrilled and, after Leving’s persistent efforts in what the late Donald Rumsfeld might describe as a “long, hard slog,” Leving was able to achieve what this dad desperately sought: an order to bring his son back home.
Attorney Jeffery M. Leving is the founder and president of the Law Offices of Jeffery M. Leving Ltd. In addition to How to be a Good Divorced Dad, he is the author of Fathers’ Rights and Divorce Wars. To learn more about Jeffery M. Leving and his legislative advocacy, follow him on Twitter and Facebook, and view his videos on You Tube.
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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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