Note: The following story is inspired by true events in Connecticut, as recounted by a mother to Frank Report. To protect the identities of the individuals involved, some names and details have been altered. The illustrations aim to depict the cruelty and injustice in this situation.
By Jenn, a mother – as told to Frank Report
In our Connecticut home, I believed my son Randy and I had finally found refuge from my abusive ex, Draven Magnus Wilester.
We nicknamed him “Ironfists” for a reason. Every time he’d lose his temper, or down too many drinks, his fists would find their mark.
A restraining order had, for a while, kept us safe.
Then, the heavy doors of the Connecticut Family Court swung open.
And the gavel came down.
First, it had been Ironfists’ physical blows. Now, it was his calculated strategy of parental alienation.
The initial judge granted me custody. Somehow he was replaced, and Judge #2 emerged, wiping clean a decade of protections, blind to the scars and expert warnings that cautioned the court about my son’s safety.
He granted Draven ample visitation. And he abused my son, while setting up claims of parental alienation. Clever Draven did everything in his power to torment his son and make it appear my son’s aversion was my fault, not his own bullying actions.
As if mocking our pleas, the title of “parental alienation” was stamped upon us, turning my son’s heart-wrenching accounts to CT Family Services on their head. The system seemed to say, “Your love for your mother? It’s manipulation.”
The emotional toll on Randy and I was enormous. Randy, though only 13, carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. His eyes were constant mirrors of worry and fear every time he had to go to his dad’s for a visit.
My heart ached at his anguish, my fears amplified by my dwindling resources. Draven could outspent me by 10 to one.
The court battle heated up. Draven filed motion after motion, accusing me of causing his bad relationship with his son.
Despite Connecticut’s laws letting older children voice their residence choice, it was as if a gag order was placed on Randy.
Then, a hammer blow: Judge #3, without having met my son, flipped custody to Draven. He ignored my expert witnesses in psychology and fact witnesses who saw the true Draven Wilester AKA Ironfists.
Parental alienation.
He ordered Randy to pack off from his happy home within an hour and go across the state to live with the man he feared, leaving behind his mother, his family, his friends and every comfort he knew.
For 85 days, I was under a no contact order. I was stunned. I felt helpless, powerless and defeated. How could this be happening?
But life, in its irony, intervened. The very judge who’d torn us apart left this world. His heart attacked back at him.
I’d like to think his spirit was transported to a realm more fitting, one where he can no longer traumatize children and hand them to their abusers.
Yet his legacy was our nightmare.
Randy’s father was angry that he would not abandon hope to live with me now that he had custody. He tormented him. He beat him. He even threatened to kill him.
When news reached me through a police report of Randy’s confrontation with his father, a baseball bat in hand, my heart shattered into fragments. This might end tragically.
I turned to the court again.
A brief shimmer of hope, Judge #4, seemed to hear us. He said a 14 year old should have some say in where he wants to live, and that he must be in a safe environment.
In the shadows, Ironfists plotted, tightening his financial stranglehold. He had gone too far. There were visible bruises. There was police and a psychologist report from the school involved.
But Draven was clever. Twisting truths, bending rules, always hiding behind his lawyer’s slick words.
Our glimmer of hope was snuffed out, as Judge #4 was replaced with Judge #5. He ignored the reports, called it normal for a father and a boy to fight, and he reasoned the cause was exactly as Draven said it — it was the long-term result of parental alienation.
He thought the mother should be locked up, not the poor victim Draven.
Smiling in cruelness, Judge #5 was aware of his duty.
So it went on for another year. My occasional legally permitted visits with my son were the time for his relating the horrors his father forced him to endure.
One summer day, when I returned Randy to his father at the police station where we always exchanged custody, my son, almost 16, stood his ground, refusing to enter his car. His father tried to have him arrested. The police refused. He tried to physically take him,
But Randy was ready to fight. My son returned home with me.
A momentary victory, but the system clawed back, threatening me.
Judge #6 commanded Randy’s return. He ruled that I would lose all visitation if I did not immediately return him to the home he did not want to live in.
Randy wanted to speak in court. But Judge #6 said his father would do the speaking for his custodial charge.
As the calendar pages turn, my son nears 17. He has another year of suffering under the CT family court system, where clever fathers hire cleverer attorneys to forum shop for the cleverest pro-parental alienation judges to mute children’s voices.
But soon, Randy will turn 18, and the chains will snap. We dream of that day, praying for the healing that will come. God willing, we will rebuild.
Frank Parlato 
Janine Morrison 
J.J. O'Hara 
Richard Luthmann 
Marie White 
Paul Serran
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
If you live in Connecticut and you are a woman and you have been impregnated by a man you lose All autonomy until that child is of age of majority. My best advice is if you are a woman and you Have been impregnated by a man or if you live in America alone and have been impregnated by a man leave the country Run do not go to family court run run run
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sAG-1OPHp30
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyvjwsrrOQE/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Peter. The use of parental alienation is the reason Rico is going on in the family court. You claim there is only one guy running the fatherhood is a lie. The access and visitation grant. The use of medication paid for for fathers. Are you a mems right advocate? Are you misleading women Connecticut about the state and curruption? Your x wife was running on the green ticket spuing the healthy marriage part of the fatherhood initiative agenda. Did you jump on Karen’s case to continue to keep the parental alienation bs going?
Mediation
Parental alienation is an unrecognized hypothesis. It’s used as a weapon in family court. Until you stop the use of it family court system will never be fixed.
Is Parental Alienation misused in some cases? Yes. Is it real and is it far more common that a parent is denied access to their child due to false claims of abuse? Absolutely.
As long as we keep putting “discretion” before rights and due process of law in our broken and corrupt “family” courts, this problem will remain.
And the Divorce Industry will continue to take advantage.
Perfect comment
Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed — and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy.
And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment — the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution — not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply “give the public what it wants” — but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.
UFO sightings on the hour are running our courts. Desresion rather than evidence and due process. Parental alienation is self reported and a profitable industry that is self serving. e. The so called “symptoms of alienation” are the same as an abused child. When we get ride of sexist gender bias language in the MOU and legislation passed. Stop stuffing gender bias funding in every cavity of the state we can get a balance legal system. When we start punishing crime not the people reporting it we may be able to fix the system. Fixing the problems on a state level we can fix the divorce industry taking advantage. As long as fatherhood funding is running the state we will continue to have false alligations of parental alienation. It’s questionable which is the bigger problem in family court. Statistics and the united nations are pointing ☝️ to parental alienation alligations being the biggest concern to be addressed in the worlds family court system.
The father knows best. Judges know best Mothers don’t know. Women are not as smart as men. The lady can’t raise this kid like his dad can. She should thank Judge Adelman for looking out for her stupid brat v
How many of us were not given a list of GALs.? How many forced to use the psychologist? How many of us had mental health professionals involved that the court disregard? It’s a trap!
It’s a total trap!
The reforms of 2014/2015 do no good when attorneys and judges ignore them. Zero accountability.
CT got rid of sheriffs and gave the power to judicial marshals for a reason.
No accountability. It’s all a trap. Child trafficking everyday in CT family court!
Heart-wrenching and intentional cruelty to children.
These judges know exactly what they’re doing. It’s a set up not to cross one and other.
Even judges who try to bring remedy or fairness are quickly removed. In Ambrose’s case Judge Nieves was thwarted. J Rodrigues assigned the case to her and under the guidance and secrecy of Alex Cuda the same motion for an RO that was denied by J Nieves appeared again before Judge ONeill.
The courts are not of the people. They are for profits businesses.
We must unite to protect our children.
It’s frightening but victims of the courts remain silent. I get it. But without coming forward and naming names, these criminals remain in full power.
Her son is being terrorized and isolated from the love and care of his mom. But everyone is too afraid of punishment and this continues on for decades. And the public can’t believe it when they are told of these horrors that occur everyday.
Adelman is the sign of child trafficking. His history with Robert Horwitz and Bruce Freedman goes back decades. They work in lockstep to abuse and steal children and destroy mothers and children.
Thank you for brining your story forward.
its not only Mom’s. Dads get abused in CT too!. These experts just raid family coffers and whomever has the $$$ gets better treatment. It is all about $$$.
Very true.
It’s a set up from the start.
CT attorneys joint forces and decide the best way to make themselves rich.
In Riordan’s case if her attorney filed for a needed and demonstrated RO, it would have been over.
The likely would have shared custody and moved along. But that wouldn’t allow for hundreds of thousands that they got from siding with Ambrose – stealing the kids, draining family bank- at least moms half.
Sick sick attorneys in family court. They’re evil child abusers.
Plenty of men suffer as well.
Ambrose is a fool to keep paying but maybe he needs to – it seems his money keeps him out of jail. Police protect him.
It’s sad, even in theSe so-called modern times that we even have to have a conversation that happens to both mothers and fathers that’s the whole intent to have us pointing guns inward and I look at what they’re doing to heighten the conflict so they can extract more dollars
Fathers are routinely destroyed and alienated in family courts which almost entirely side with the mothers except in cases of severe danger to the children supported by nothing less than hard evidence of her part. As for the fathers, no evidence of wrong doing besides the mother’s testimony is needed to have him completely fleeced of his savings, future earnings, home, and forced to live out of his car. Evidence should be required to prove guilt toward either parent not just of fathers.
Mothers are by far more prone to violent outbursts against the children. Against the husbands, they abuse because they know he will not strike back or risk being jailed. She, on the other hand, risks nothing.
More and more high profile cases are coming out of women physically abusing men, lying about a man’s alleged abuse, and then taunting the men about how no one will ever believe them. The public’s eyes are being opened to the manipulative tactics of women. Don’t not believe all men nor all women. Gather evidence and be very skeptical when only one side is seeking attention.
Men statistically not getting trampled on read the stastial date on women loosing custody when the father yells parental alienation. Just like back in the days of the witch hunts. Parental alienation is the modern day witch hunt.
Yes, it is unfortunate that the bad apples ruined it for all they were those who ruined it for the real Parental Alienation cases just like there’s the bad apples that make false allegations of abuse, that ruined it for the real cases.
Just look up silver bullet practice of a divorce and you’ll become very aware
http://www.targetedparent.com/blog/2016/2/22/the-silver-bullet#:~:text=The%20Silver%20Bullet%20is%20when,abuse%20about%20the%20other%20parent.
Another uneducated comment
This mother’s battle is the battle of many mothers. I so closely resemble my daughter and my experience. Take the home 🏡 and the judge will want the child in the place they grew up. Take the child control the finances. My daughter was 16 then 17. Absolutely little to no say. Dragged to court until the 11th hour. This is pattern in Connecticut. God help the parents s who have young children. That have to endure years of legal battles. The children have to endure years of the court life.
[…] A mother told FR how Connecticut Family Court handled the custody battle between her and her abusive ex, which led to her losing custody of her son, much against his wishes. […]
And I hope to God that your lawyer immediately files emancipation papers for your son so that the father can not have any further control over your son whatsoever.
Emancipation means they can’t reside with either parents. They can see whoever they wish and sleep 🥱 over. They can get husky and $250 a week from the state. If your children are better off at 16. It’s an option. Find a trusted friend or relatives to take them in. It’s better than life of abuse.