Last weekend, Dominique
Buccafurri, 24, of Cranston, Rhode Island, went to Washington, D.C., and
met other young adults whose lives have been turned upside down by family
courts that fail to protect them from abuse in their own homes.
One of those at the conference, Damon Moelter, was six, when he first accused his father in San
Diego ten years ago of sexually abusing him. Authorities were unwilling to believe
the boy and gave him to his father’s sole custody. Damon eventually escaped and
went into hiding. At 14, he posted
videos online protesting the courts’ refusal to protect him. Recently, at 16, with
his mother’s permission, he got married in Reno as the only way he could win legal
emancipation from his father.
Dominique and Damon went to Washington, D.C., last weekend with
scores of others for the Tenth Anniversary of the Battered Mothers Custody Conference at George Washington University
Law School. On Mothers Day, several dozen joined the Mothers of Lost Children in front of the White House before that
group lobbied Congress to establish and ensure due process for children when
they become victims of crime in their own homes. Yet state courts persist in
giving them to the sole custody of abusers.
A Dutch Embassy official accepted an award honoring the
people and government of the Netherlands for granting amnesty to Holly Collins and her children in 1994,
after they escaped Minnesota, where domestic violence had left one child with a
fractured skull while the court kept returning them to their assailant. The
family’s Dutch attorney, Els Lucas, also
received an award and was featured in Garland
Waller’s documentary, “No Way Out But One.”
University of Bridgeport psychiatry professor Liane J. Leedom shared her research on
the “parasitic and predatory lifestyle” of psychopaths and the family courts’
difficulty understanding the impact of this disorder on children and
non-offending parents. Donna Anderson’s
workshop, books, and website, LoveFraud.com, offer resources to help victims of
sociopaths and psychopaths.
Camille Cooper
spoke about the work of the
National Association
to Protect Children. Cooper spearheaded two successful acts of Congress along
with state legislation that has rescued thousands of children (
www.protect.org). White House Advisor
Lynn Rosenthal described the recently
reenacted Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and its new recognition that
non-offending mothers are often subjected to legal abuse when they try to
protect children from court-ordered visits with abusers.
Dominique Buccafurri
encouraged those at the conference not to give up on their children. For twelve
years, her father, a police detective, held sole custody of her and claimed that
her mother was a “dangerous drug addict and a whore.” In 2003, at the age of
14, Dominique realized those words were lies, and she appealed to the twelfth
family court judge to hear the case. Associate Justice Stephen J. Capineri finally let her go home to her mother, but then
sealed the file that Dominique now wants to see.
In the decade since then, she says, her father has denied
her any contact with the two half-sisters she still loves. He refuses to put
her on his medical insurance. “I know the lies he told about my mother when he
used to say he only wanted my ‘best interest,’ and I wonder why all those
judges chose to believe him.”
Her parents’ family
court case, that started 24 years ago, the year she was born, illustrates the
way judges in family court allow mental health experts to harass and endanger
victims of domestic violence. A workshop focusing on their case showed how mental health experts were used:
1. to authenticate lies by reporting hearsay as if it were true,
2. to accuse victims of crime as if they were the perpetrators,
3. to harm vulnerable children and adults by forcing them to meet with their
abusers, and
4. to delay resolution and healing.
The case
demonstrates that:
1. Domestic violence is a crime that cannot be resolved in a civil court.
2. These crimes should be heard by a jury.
3. Domestic violence is a criminal matter, not a mental health matter.
4. Victims of crime should not have to hire lawyers and psychologists to
protect themselves and their children from abuse.
