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Judge Has Not Decided Fate of
Luisi Children after Nine Months Judge Stahlin Denies Children
the Love of Their Father
By Ed Oliver Over
nine months have passed since the conclusion of the trial involving
the fate of the Luisi children but Judge Jeremy Stahlin has still
not announced a decision. Meanwhile
the children are reported to be suffering terribly and doing poorly. The
children were taken from their father in 1997 and given to the mother
even though the father has legal custody from a 1995 divorce decree.
The reason that the children were taken was because the mother filed
a single charge of abuse with DSS that was later dismissed as false.
The
children have been kept from their father under a “temporary”
court order issued in 1997 based on the single false charge. During
much of that time, the children were not allowed to even visit the
father. A
trial in the matter began in January 2000 and finally ended in June
2000, but Judge Stahlin still has not announced a decision. Meanwhile
the bewildered children are unable to cope with the problems that
this is inflicting upon them. What Is Judge’s Problem? In
order for the documented unfit mother to be given custody, she has
to prove to Judge Stahlin that there has been a significant change
since the divorce to justify a modification of the agreement. But
there is no evidence to justify a ruling by Stahlin in favor of
the mother. In fact, in the last four years, evidence abounds that
the children have fared poorly in her care. The
children no longer play sports, go with the scouts or to dance lessons
like they did with their father. Their grades have plummeted in
school. One child was diagnosed with malnutrition. The boys ran
away to their pastor because they were afraid of the boyfriend who
they said was beating them. The neighbors and a private investigator
reported that the kids are neglected and wandering outside late
at night. The kids are frequently not bathed, poorly clothed and
not fed properly despite an abundance of state assistance plus support
money from the father. During
the course of the case, the mother had the free services of two
poverty lawyers and a law student. On the other hand, the father
owes his lawyer $20,000 in legal fees and owes his family ten thousand
dollars in personal loans. On
top of that, at the conclusion of the trial last summer, Judge Stahlin
increased the father’s support payments from more than $900
per month to over $1600 per month. David Luisi’s current net
income does not cover his rent. Judge
Opted to Make No Decision The
father’s brother-in-law, Steve Guilmet observed, “Since
Judge Stahlin can not make the decision he would like Ð to give
legal custody to the mother Ð he has opted to not make a decision
at all. At least that way, the mother can continue to keep the children
under a temporary order.” Guilmet believes that the judge increased
the support payments to force the father into a homeless situation,
which would give the judge an excuse to award custody to the mother. Currently,
Luisi is moving into an apartment owned by his parents in order
to keep afloat. He has been surviving on help from his family throughout
the ordeal. Without their help, he would be out on the street. The
one good thing that happened when the trial was ending last year
is that the father was granted visitation with his children after
being cut-off from seeing them for a year. He now sees them every
Wednesday after school and every other weekend. The family says
they keep a good set of clean clothes and shoes for the kids when
they visit and try to make the stay as cheery as possible. The
children are still not faring well, according to reports from the
family. They say that the oldest boy is a lost cause. He is almost
14 years old. They fear he is set in his ways after all this time.
He is out-of-control and he has been getting D’s and F’s
since last year. Despite his poor performance in the Boston schools,
he was promoted to eighth grade. A letter to Superintendent Payzant
by the concerned family was answered with a brush-off response saying
he was “making progress.” Sen.
Marian Walsh Not Interested Guilmet
provided MassNews copies of letters he wrote to State Senator Marian
Walsh, and said he even visited her. He said she hasn’t helped
and only told him, “The system works.” Guilmet showed
Walsh a photo of his skeleton-thin niece, who is almost nine years
old now. The youngest boy is almost eleven years old. Guilmet
told MassNews, “Realistic scenario? Carrie keeps custody of
the kids, David has enough visitations to keep the kids on a straight
path and clean up all of Carrie’s screw-ups. As the custodial
parent, Carrie still has access to all the freebies that she’s
grown accustomed to.” The
neglectful mother appears unable to raise the children properly
despite having: A free legal team consisting of two lawyers and
a law student, a court “victim advocate,” a DSS case worker,
a DSS parent aid, school special education teachers, school-provided
breakfast and lunch, after-school tutors, school counselors and
teachers, summer camp (state-paid), paid health insurance (David),
a live-in boyfriend, a psychologist, child support payments (David),
a Guardian Ad Litem, and earned income credit (IRS). Even
with all that at her disposal, she testified that she did not bother
to take her daughter to get checked by a doctor when a dog bit her
on the arm. After
being falsely accused in 1997, David Luisi had to wait over a year
for his “fair hearing” at DSS. After another five months
of waiting for the decision, he was finally cleared of the single
abuse charge. It then took another nine months for DSS to correct
the records. During
this time, David Luisi and his alarmed relatives were writing to
the media, politicians, and doctors about the children’s situation.
Except for Massachusetts News, the plight of the children was ignored
because DSS was in charge. Social
Worker Conspires Against Father In
May 1999 after the father was cleared of the false abuse charge,
he told the mother’s DSS social worker, Geneva Trent, on the
telephone of his intention to reclaim physical custody of his three
children to rescue them from their situation. (The children had
flourished when they lived with their father after the 1995 divorce
until their removal in January 1997.) But
the mother wanted the court to change the divorce decree so she
could move with the children to New York. Because David was cleared
of any wrong doing, she had nothing to show for a reason to change
the divorce agreement. In
June 1999, social worker Geneva Trent conspired with the mother,
according to DSS records, to sabotage the father’s efforts
to rescue his children. A Motion was filed without the knowledge
of the father on June 11, 1999 at the Suffolk County Probate Court
to suspend David’s visitation. Attempts
to get a tape of the Motion Hearing have been unsuccessful. The
court told David that they couldn’t find the hearing on the
tape. While some might suspect editing of the tape (such as happened
at Middlesex Probate Court to Zed McLarnon), Guilmet suspects there
was never any hearing. He thinks DSS simply handed the judge some
papers to rubber stamp. The
judge who signed the Motion, John Smoot, issued an emergency order
suspending David Luisi’s visitation. The order was based on
hearsay from social worker Geneva Trent about phone conversations
with an “angry” David Luisi, who was allegedly a threat
to the children. But DSS phone records show it was the social worker
about whom the father was justifiably angry, for ignoring the neglect
of the children. David
did not see his children for a year after that. In order to see
them, he would have had to enroll in a batterer’s program which
would have automatically branded him an abuser and hurt his chances
of ever seeing the children again. In June of 2000, the custody
trial ended. Final written arguments were submitted in July. The
family is still waiting for Judge Stahlin to make a decision. See
the Luisi story in the June, 2000 Massachusetts News article, “How
Children Are Destroyed by Massachusetts Courts.”
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