Massachusetts News 
By John Maquire 

Haverhill, October 1–When Dennis Watts found the note from his daughter under his pillow just before her tenth birthday, he got a lump in his throat. Sara had written: "Daddy, please ask the judge if you can come to my birthday party Sunday. Double-digits!" 

He went downstairs to check, and, sure enough the cellar window was ajar. Sara had crawled in through the basement window of the house she used to live in, and snuck up the stairs to leave the birthday note for her Dad. 

Dennis Watts was getting divorced at the time and like many men in the throes of wife-initiated divorce these days, he was discovering first hand – the hard-way – just how unjust a restraining order can be. He knew Sara’s touching note would mean nothing to officialdom. It was a Friday night. Even during business hours Family Court judges don’t pay attention to handwritten notes from children, no matter how heartfelt they are. 

He recalls sighing and going to bed thinking of his two beauties, Denna and Sara. He then lived at 89 Orchard Street in Auburn, Maine. They had been the light of his life since they were toddlers and he had pulled them around the neighborhood in a wagon. They now lived a block away from him. They were 11 and 9, and they were forbidden by court order to see him. 

Sunday about noon, when he knew the birthday party would be in full swing up the block, Dennis Watts felt he could not ignore his daughter’s plea for his attention. She was dying to have him attend her "double-digit" birthday party. He picked up the phone, dialed the house, and his daughter answered. He said to her, "It’s Daddy Sara, Happy Birthday. Happy Double-Digits Birthday," and he hung up. 

He was still misty eyed with thoughts of his daughter ten minutes later, when the police cars screeched into his driveway and stopped. He was arrested, put into the car, hauled away. 

His crime: violating the restraining order which said he would have no contact with his children. His sentence for the crime of calling to wish his child happy birthday: five days in jail.  

But that wasn’t the worst of it. In a 16-month period in 1997 and 1998, as his divorce was underway, Mr. Watts was sent to jail five times, and each time the crime was nothing more than communicating with his daughters or even being near them. 

The worst was the time he saw his older daughter, Denna, on the streets of Auburn, as he drove to the local mall. She waved to him, a big smile on her face, and he waved back. 

It was a bad move for Mr. Watts. For waving to Denna, the court officials of Auburn, Maine, threw him in jail for 55 days. 

His five trips to jail included, according to records from the Androscoggin County Jail: 

• May 9-13, 1997, five days. Violation of protection order by calling to wish his daughter Happy Birthday. 

• June 23-25,1997, two days. The jail lists this as "probation hold." 

• August 6-September 25, 1997, 55 days. This was, according to Watts, "for waving to Denna on my way to the mall." 

• October 16-17, 1997, two days. Violation of protection order. 

• September 15-16, 1998, two days. Violation of protection order. 

All these jail sentences, Watts says, were for contact with his children either by phone or by driving by them on the street. 

A Good Neighbor 

Judging from the letters of reference, conversations with his family and acquaintances and even from court documents, Dennis Watts was a near ideal father during the time of his marriage. Comments from letters include: 

• "Dennis Watts’ relationship with his daughters is outstanding, one based on trust, respect, love and caring." Anne Schaefer, schoolteacher who taught both of Watts’ daughters. 

• "Dennis was the kind of neighbor that you could always count on for a hand if needed.... I can’t tell you how many times Dennis had taken my kid with his kids to the beach, the carnivals, to his family’s house in Maine and many times just for an ice cream.... I can’t put a value on how much we appreciate this and how much it is missed now that we moved away." Jerome Cecere, former neighbor of Watts. 

• "I think Dennis is committed to his kids," said Darcy Galgovitch, case manager with Maine Pretrial Services, who met Watts when he was spending 55 days in the Androscoggin Jail. "I think he’s appropriate with them and is compassionate about being involved in their lives. I think he loves them dearly." 

Dennis Watts now lives in Haverhill, where he grew up. His family of origin is nearby. He is one of thousands of Massachusetts citizens who have discovered that restraining orders trample on the rights of grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews to be in touch with each other. 

In Massachusetts, roughly half of the state’s 40,000 restraining orders each year have been estimated to be given on the flimsiest of reasons, as a routine first salvo in a divorce battle. If each of those 20,000 restraining orders affects seven people in the father’s family – as it does Dennis Watts’ family – then about 140,000 Massachusetts citizens are emotionally damaged each year by restraining orders. 

Speakers at divorced fathers’ meetings around the state talk every month about the latest restraining order outrage they have had to undergo. 

"I’m not at all surprised that neighboring states like Maine, Rhode Island and Connecticut are throwing men in jail for absurd reasons like waving in public to their children," said John Flaherty, a Milford legal specialist who runs a legal self-help course for fathers under the aegis of the Liberty Bell Union. "Massachusetts, sadly, has been the leader for a number of new and plainly unconstitutional practices that have spread through the region over the last few years." 

"The tyrannical legal practices invented here are trumpeted as great advances in the so-called war against domestic violence," he added. "Quincy District Court and Northeastern’s Domestic Violence Center are good examples of this. Sick theories, including the idea that waving to your child is a form of abuse, have spread out from Boston like ripples on a putrid pond." 

"I haven’t seen those children for two and a half years now," says Marilyn Willey, 65, her voice quavering as she talks of her granddaughters Denna and Sara. "I’ve missed everything they are ever in, their games, their plays. I missed Denna’s grade school graduation. It’s kind of hard, you know." (See sidebar.) 

Marilyn Willey is Dennis’s mother. Her son’s restraining order restrains her, too. Because the order enjoins him from any "direct or indirect contact" with his wife or his children, no one who ever knew Dennis Watts can have contact with his daughters without putting Watts at risk of arrest and jail. 

Though Marilyn Willey’s name is not on the court order, it targets her and every member of her family. This is now standard practice with restraining orders in divorce cases. In effect, such orders cut off one whole side of the family from any contact with their blood relatives. In Mrs. Willey’s case, five of her grandchildren can have a normal relationship with their "Nan." But the other two are prevented by law from doing so. 

If Denna or Sara approaches their father, with whom they clearly are closely bonded, he will be hauled away by police. If their grand mom, Marilyn Willey, calls them, their father and her son could pay with jail time. 

Men and Children Not the Only Victims 

Though men and children are the primary victims of restraining order abuse, women are frequently harmed too. Dennis Watts’ mother has had her peace of mind interfered with because she cannot see her granddaughters growing up. Likewise, his sister, Diana Vencis, has been harmed. (See sidebar.) 

In Massachusetts, the second wives of divorced men have reported that their husbands and families have been repeatedly harassed by the restraining order abuse of the first wife.  

One 55-year-old mother of a young man in Randolph has told the heart-breaking story of a five-year persecution of her son by local police. His only crime was that he broke up, five years ago, with a vindictive girlfriend who discovered that she could use restraining orders ad nauseam to punish her ex-boyfriend forever. 

The young man was, at one point, hiding in a rented attic room in Randolph, because every time he set foot on the sidewalk, his vindictive girlfriend would see him, and have him picked up for stalking her. 

No-contact restraining orders allow people to be charged even for accidental violations, so a vindictive girlfriend need only report that she has seen her ex-boyfriend for him to be picked up by police. That’s enough for the man to be arrested. The fact that the contact was accidental, at least on his side, is no defense. For a man caught in this kind of bind, the only solution is to move out of state or go into hiding. 

The Watts divorce was granted without a decision on how the children would be raised. It has still not been decided, and the father is still under a total no-contact restraining order. The strain has affected Dennis severely, as it would anyone in his situation. 

He was hospitalized once for depression and suicidal gestures. Despite that low point, his therapist reports in writing that contact with his children is desirable. Meanwhile, Dennis Watts goes to work every day in a furniture plant in Haverhill, runs his small, interior painting company and hopes his case moves forward. 

Though it may not help him directly because his restraining order is in Maine, Massachusetts citizens are working to reform the 209A restraining order law in this state. The legislature is currently considering changes. These would require some evidence to be presented to the court and would prevent a man from being arrested for an unintentional violation of an order. 

"No one is there when I am sitting home all alone each night without my family," Watts wrote a friend recently. "My mind wanders endlessly to the past. I see the children at all different ages. Special moments flash through my mind all the time. Very happy times. I am then shocked back into reality. How did this happen? It’s like a bad dream." 

"My children are being hurt, and not one person in the whole system gives a damn. Every single person I’ve dealt with in the system couldn’t care less about the children. I’ve asked every single one of them the same question: ‘Don’t you see what this is doing to the children?" They don’t know what to say. They absolutely avoid the question." 
 

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