Legal Question in Family Law in Ohio

My boyfriend is trying to get custody of his two sons.

We live in Ohio and now his children live in Florida. It all started almost 4 years ago. They were never married and she chose to leave him. September 2008, She left him. In November 2008 is when i met him. We were picking the children up every other weekend and providing anything that they would need. In 2009 she filed a custody case, she wanted to move to Florida. He did not have an attorney and she did. The judge allowed her to move to Florida before the case was over. Her reason for moving was to better her live but she is in the exact same situation she was in while she was up her. She lives with her boyfriend (which happens to be her step-dads nephew) grandma and has just moved his mother in. Which makes 4 adults and 2 children living in a 3 bedroom house. While down there she agreed to let him pick up the kids, when he went to the airport in Florida, she told him he could not take his children unless he signed this visitation agreement. He signed it because he didn't want to leave his kids standing there wondering why they weren't going with him.

The agreement was never notarized or witnessed. Her lawyer filed that agreement to the court and the case was dismissed.

The visitation agreement says he should only get the kids June, July and August and it says nothing about holidays. Every year she has been lying as to when her plane is leaving from Ohio to go back to Florida. She has been staying in Ohio so that she can stay with her mother a week, which her mother was just charged with drug trafficking. She also has been cutting his time down to just June and July. She called him the other day saying she was going to pick them up on the 1st of August and if he don't like it, oh well and said she will call the cops, if he tries to stop her. She is also not allowing the kids to see him on any holiday. They have only spent 1 Christmas with their father since all of this has been going on. This will be the 3rd year he will not get to see them on Christmas. She also always dangles his kids over his head, saying if you don't do this or that you cant see his kids.

All she cares about is the child support. She always says, if you don't pay me, you will not see your kids.

He wants to go for full custody. All of their family lives in Ohio, mothers and fathers. We are stable have been for 3 years. He has had his job almost three years, He pays his child support. He has been trying to work it out, but she is just so mean to him that he cant take it anymore.

How hard would it be for him to get custody of his sons?


Asked on 7/23/12, 8:36 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Eric Willison Eric Eastman Willison

In Ohio, he should make a motion with the Ohio Court having jursidiction over the matter to either modify the visitation agreement so as to allow for holidays and normal Rule 27 visitation, arguing that a change in circumstances has occurred since she has been denying him visitation. Alternately, he could argue that he should get full custody of the children because circumstances are different now then they were when the initial custody order was signed (the mother's drug trafficking, the missed visits, etc).

It will be up to the court at that point to decide the matter. He would do best to hire an attorney to help him with that.

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Answered on 7/23/12, 10:06 am


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