Incarcerated dad wins court order banning mother from relocating daughter to Georgia
A father who’s in prison in Illinois has a 9-year-old daughter, whom he raised with the girl’s mother until he was locked up. He recently learned that his daughter’s mother planned to move, with the girl, to Georgia.
This was jarring news to Dad, because he communicates frequently with his daughter while incarcerated, on the phone and via video conference, and he fully intends to resume his loving relationship with her in person once he’s released, which will be in the next month or two. If the mother were to move with the child out of state, Dad feared he would lose contact with his young daughter, causing irreparable harm to the father-child relationship.
Dad had his cousin contact the Law Offices of Jeffery M. Leving Ltd. in Chicago, which litigated the case on the father’s behalf. Attorney Jeffery M. Leving, the founder and president of the firm, will speak about the case on his weekly radio show, the Dads’ Rights Legal Hour, 9-10 a.m. CDT Saturday, May 6, on Power 92.3 FM in Chicago.
Three days after Dad retained the Leving firm, the client’s cousin advised them that the mother was moving to Georgia in two days, rather than in one month.
“We immediately took action, preparing an emergency petition for a temporary restraining order seeking an order stopping the mother from moving the little girl,” Leving says. “Our private detective served the mother with an emergency petition, a notice of emergency motion to appear in court, and more, one day before she planned on moving.”
The mother told the court that she had already packed her belongings, and that she had made a down payment on rent for a new home in Georgia and was moving.
“Thanks to our intervention, the judge entered an order prohibiting the mother from removing the girl from Illinois, and she did not move – a win for Dad, his daughter and for our legal team,” Leving says. “This is an important victory, modified for broadcast, which rights a wrong, as I see it – something we see persistently. For some reason, many parents with residential custody think they can up and move. Generally speaking, they can’t, unless either the other parent agrees or the court allows it.”
The efforts of the Leving legal team ensured that this child would remain where she belongs, and protected Dad’s right to continue his relationship with his daughter in person after his imminent release from prison.
“We came through for Dad and his daughter in a big way,” Leving says. “There are good divorced dads who have lost their liberty, but are still loved and needed by their children.”
Jeffery M. Leving is founder and president of the Law Offices of Jeffery M. Leving Ltd., and is a strong advocate. He is the author of Fathers’ Rights, Divorce Wars and How to be a Good Divorced Dad, the latter of which was endorsed by President Obama and by Cardinal Francis E. George, then the archbishop of Chicago. To learn more about Leving and his latest court victories, follow him on Twitter and Facebook, and view his videos on You Tube.
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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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