Letter to Dr. Phil

A friend of mine, Michael Port, who is also a father fighting to see his children, sent me the following link to Dr. Phil's website Dr. Phil.com - Be on the Show - Accused of Trying to Harm Your Child? I whittled my story down as much as possible and sent in the following post. Hopefully Dr. Phil can help bring attention to my story. You can help me out by going to Dr. Phil's link and sharing your thoughts about my story. Even a couple of sentences would be great. Thanks for the help.

"I haven’t seen my four and six year old daughters for over a year. On August 18, 2009, Dearborn Circuit Court (IN) Judge James D. Humphrey terminated all of my parenting time with my, then, three and five year old children. I had always played an equal role in caring for my girls and I cared for them nearly half of the time during the course of a 2 ½ year divorce. There were no accusations of abuse or neglect. There were no reports from the police, pediatricians, CPS, etc… There were no accounts of the children being injured while in my care. There were no accusations that I ever harassed the children’s mother or that I presented a physical risk to anyone. There were no motions to modify my parenting time. During the first day of the final hearings, on May 27, 2009, Judge Humphrey asked custody evaluator, Dr. Edward J. Connor how my alleged “behaviors” reflect on my parenting and the safety of the children. Dr. Connor testified, “My concern is that if he -- it might not be necessary, the physical safety, but the psychological well-being of the children if he were to attempt to coach them in any way against the mother.”

My children lost the ability to have a father because Dr. Connor testified that my children could suffer psychological damages IF I were to attempt to coach them against their mother. There were never any allegations that I tried to manipulate the girls. The Court also listed concerns about the safety of my children because I have ADHD, despite there being no reports of me “forgetting” to care for or protect the children. Dr. Connor testified on May 27, 2009, and the final hearing was on June 3, 2009. Following the final hearings, I continued to care for my daughters every Wednesday, Friday, every third Monday and half of the weekends, as I had been doing during the entire 2 ½ year divorce. On August 18, 2009, without warning, Judge Humphrey terminated all of my parenting time. Prior to August 18, 2009, no one, including Dr. Connor, ever mentioned terminating my parenting time, leaving me unable to build a defense against it.

“The Court is most concerned about Husband’s irrational behavior and attacks on Dr. Connor.” Judge Humphrey made this statement in the final decree. Dr. Connor filed his custody evaluation report with the Court on August 29, 2007. Dr. Connor’s report recommended that the children’s mother have full custody and I should be able to continue to care for the children three days a week. On February 21, 2008, Dr. Connor wrote a letter to the Court claiming that there were “numerous errors and oversights” in the report and wanted to offer additional sessions, at the clients’ expense, to correct his errors. On March 6, 2008, I requested a copy of the case file from Dr. Connor’s report. Dr. Connor stated that he was not allowed to release the file. When I informed Dr. Connor that his contract stated that I was entitled to the file, he began contacting the Court directly, asking if I was entitled to it. Despite there being no protective order from the Court that prohibited Dr. Connor from releasing the file to me, Dr. Connor stated that he “interpreted” the Judge’s ruling to be that I was entitled to the evaluation report but not the case file. Dr. Connor later stated that his contract stated that the parties were entitled to the file but he would not release it to me because I was not an attorney and then he claimed that there were state and HIPAA laws that prevented me from releasing the file. Dr. Connor continued to contact the first Judge in my case until Judge Taul recused himself because of the ex-parte communications.

I did not lose the ability to be a father because I was dangerous; I lost my children because I began sharing my story on the internet. I posted Dr. Connor’s conflicting letters where he said that he would be happy to release the file to me and then later stated that there were state and HIPAA laws that prohibited him from releasing the file. I wrote about how Dr. Connor was not licensed to practice psychology in the state of Indiana. I wrote about how Ripley Circuit (IN) Judge Carl H. Taul stated in a hearing that, “The order for the Doctor was to release that which he is obligated to do under Kentucky Law.” Of course there was no such order. Nowhere in the Court record or in any of my internet writings do I attack the mother or address the mother by name. There was a hearing on the mother’s motion for a protective order (non-physical) that requested the court to force me to take down my internet content. The Court properly denied her motion because the internet content was not harassing to her or harmful to the children.

Since the termination of my parenting time, the mother had me arrested in Cincinnati, Ohio for telecommunications harassment which was dismissed and expunged. I have been the subject of a yearlong “secret” investigation by the Dearborn County (IN) Special Crimes Unit (SPU), which began in October 2009. The only information that the SPU would share with me was that it pertained to my writings. Less than a week before the June 13, 2010 hearing to approve a psychiatrist to evaluate me, Judge Humphrey recused himself because he claimed that there was an ongoing investigation of me that pertained to him. Since then, my attorney has been unable to get another hearing because of “miscommunications” between the courts and delays in filing information in the clerk’s office. An IP address from the Indiana Supreme Court has frequented my websites while my case was in appeal. My story was a topic of conversation on Cincinnati’s 700 WLW and the August 4, 2010 podcast of Eric Deters’ radio show can be found on the station’s website.

I have documentation and recordings to prove what I state and I cannot reiterate enough that I have never been accused of any sexual or violent abuse nor have I been accused of drug or alcohol abuse. I was not only denied the ability to be a parent; I was denied the ability to defend my parenting abilities because I was prohibited from seeing the evidence against me. For more information, go to www.danhelpskids.com and www.danbrewington.blogspot.com. Thank you."